Let's Go To Court! - 236: The Disappearance of Elizabeth Sullivan & the Tech Rapist

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

Elizabeth Sullivan was struggling. She’d married her military husband following a whirlwind romance a few years earlier. Shortly after they married, the Navy relocated the couple to San Diego. So, Elizabeth found herself far from friends and family, often alone, with two young children. She and her husband, Matthew, argued. He got violent with her. Elizabeth told her friends she’d had enough. She was going to leave Matthew. They never heard from her again.  Then Kristin tells us about a series of rapes that gripped Texas Tech in 1984 and 1985. Young women were being raped late at night, often while they were parking their cars. Police sketches of the attacker all looked different enough that many young Black men were afraid to go on campus late at night, for fear that they’d be mistaken for the Tech Rapist. Eventually, female police officers began posing as students in an attempt to bait the rapist. About a week into the undercover operation, police were certain they’d caught the right guy — Tim Cole. They were wrong. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Tim Cole” episodes of Vindicated “Timothy Cole” InnocenceTexas.org “Cole case,” by Jena Williams for Texas Monthly  “The Innocent Man: Timothy Cole,” by Matt Sell for Everything Lubbock “Judge clears dead Texas man of rape conviction,” Associated Press, NBC News “A push to award a degree to a symbol of injustice,” by Reeve Hamilton for The Texas Tribune “Statue of Tim Cole to be unveiled soon,” by Anna Tinsley for The Star-Telegram “Innocence now on display,” by Mitch Mitchell for The Star-Telegram “Victim aims to clear name of dead man convicted of attack,” by Max B. Baker for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram “Innocence lost in attack, but courage was found,” by Bob Ray Sanders for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram “‘You are a victim, just like my son was,’” by Max B. Baker for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram “A day of vindication for innocent man, family,” by Max B. Baker for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram “DNA in 1985 rape exonerates man who died behind bars,” Associated Press, Los Angeles Times “The Cole Truth,” by Fred McKinley for the Texas Observer In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Secrets by the Bay” episode Dateline “Elizabeth Sullivan” chillingcrimes.com “Timeline: The Disappearance of Elizabeth Sullivan” by Monica Garske, San Diego 7 News “Ex-Navy Man Who ‘Brutally Murdered' Wife in San Diego in 2014 Sentenced” by Monica Garske and Christina Bravo, San Diego 7 News “Ex-Navy Sailor Murdered Wife with Children in Other Room, Then Froze Body and Claimed She'd Left” by Steve Helling, people.com “Husband gets 16 years to life for killing wife, dumping body in bay two years later” by Teri Figueroa, The San Diego Union-Tribune YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 40+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts! I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court! On this episode, I'll be talking about the tech rapist. And I'll be talking about a disappearance.

Okay. You like a disappearance! I do. I know that's rude, but I do. Yeah. Yeah. We know you's rude, but I do. Yeah. We know you're rude, so it's fine. I didn't say I'm rude. You're not rude. I'm just kidding. Just got a bad attitude.

Is it because I've got a hot new jean jacket on? It looks so good. I love the wash on it. Yeah, thank you. It smells bad. And it smells so good. Everybody, you know that thing where you buy a new item of clothing and you get it home and you realize it smells weird? If it's from TJ Maxx, it's like, well, that's...

This is what I paid for. Yeah. I got this from Nordstrom. The store. Not Nordstrom Rack. Yeah. I got this from Nordstrom. The store. Not Nordstrom Rack. Yeah. What does it smell like? I don't know.

Just kind of like a musty. Musty, dusty, busty lady. That's what people think when they see me. Musty, dusty, busty lady? Yeah, that's what they're thinking. That's what you're thinking, right? That's what I think every time I look at you. Uh-huh.

Yeah. You know, I feel like we're off to kind of a slow start this episode. Are you feeling calm and good? Yeah, I feel pretty good. Yeah. You want to talk about what's going on in your life? Sorry for... What is going on in my life?

I mean, I'm getting married, like, in days, folks. In days. And it is very exciting. Okay. I had been super stressed about the wedding, like, getting everything done. And now, like, everything's done. And now I can't get here fast enough. I'm so excited for it.

Which is why you're having your wedding on a Tuesday. I am not. Save money. No is why you're having your wedding on a Tuesday. I am not. Save money. No, it's going to be so fun. I'm so excited. Unless it gets ruined somehow. It's not going to. Is that a challenge?

No, don't ruin it. I won't ruin your wedding. I do think I'll wax my arms in anticipation of your wedding. You think so? You know, we had a conversation at lunch about how hairy I am. I don't think you're that hairy. But the reality is I am. I'm concerned about the nipple thing, though.

Okay, everyone. I think I'm not a freak. I think you've been hashtag blessed in many areas of your life. I am hashtag blessed, yeah. I think you've been hashtag blessed in many areas of your life. I am hashtag blessed, yeah. Everyone, I have a few stray hairs that grow out around my nipples. I don't think that's so freaky. I just assumed everyone.

Maybe they do. I don't have any nipple hairs. Do you want to tell them how confused you were? Okay, legitimately, I thought when she was telling me she had nipple hairs that, like, she had a hair fall out of her head and get trapped in her bra and was, like, on her nipple. And so I was trying to explain that, like, oh, that makes sense because you have curly hair. And Kristen was like, the fuck are you talking about? What does it mean having curly hair? It doesn't have anything to do with that.

I was like, well, you know, your hair has a curl pattern. And so when it's coiled and so then when it comes out, it makes sense to me that it can get coiled around your nipple. And you were like, no, no, no. I have like a couple of hairs that grow out of my nip. My nip. Not the actual nip itself. No. The area around.

The areola, if you will. Anyway, so either I'm a freak. I don't think you are. I kind of don't think I am either. I think you are blessed. Yeah, I don't have a lot of body hair, so. All right. Did you get like fully lasered a couple years back?

No. I have had one laser hair removal experience in my life and it scarred me, not physically, emotionally and mentally. I had laser hair removal on my upper lip when I was in high school because I was convinced that I had the thickest, blackest mustache any person had ever seen in their life. Where did you get that idea? By the way, if anyone hates tangents, apologies. Sorry, fast forward. Okay.

In the sixth grade, somebody once said, your boyfriend, in fact, once said to me that I had black hairs on my upper lip, and then I was traumatized for the rest of my life. Yes. Fucker. That is ridiculous. So you went and got. So I went and got laser hair removal when I was like 16 years old and they burnt my face and then I had to go to school with a burnt upper lip and it looked like I had leprosy

or something. Wow. Yeah. Man. I've never something. Wow. Yeah. Man. I've never had any other. Yeah, no, that one time will do you. Strictly waxing for me from here on out. Yeah.

You know what I've been thinking about? What? Getting one of those at-home laser hair removal devices. Oh, yeah. I wonder if those work. You think those work? I don't know. By the way, this is not an ad, obviously.

Have you seen that TikTok ad for that thing you just like rub over your skin and it's supposed to make your hair come off? That sounds ridiculous. No, I don't know what you're talking about. The way you moved just then, I assumed it's like a rough oven mitt. It looks like a little, almost looks like a bar of soap. Okay. But it's made of plastic and something else. And you like rub it on your skin and it's supposed to remove the hair and last longer than shaving.

Which, are we just sandpapering off the top? Is it painful? I don't know. I haven't done it, Kristen. Well, you've seen the ladies do it on TikTok. No, they all smile. But they all smile when they remember those nads ad. And like that was just ripping off layers of skin and they acted

like it was no big deal. Yeah. Yeah. I do remember that. And they were, oh man. What? I remember those infomercials very clearly. Nads. That's right. It was like an Australian woman. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, man. Nads and Nair. You remember what Nair smelled like? Yeah. Terrible. Yeah.

Anyway, the hairs. Yeah. My God, the hairs. The hairs. Anyway, apparently society thinks we should all be hairless, except for on our heads. Then we should have full, luxurious, shiny hair from our heads. Also a full bush. That's what society is. Society's always like Wait is society back on the bush or is it?

I thought it was still like They've always demanded the bush. Anyway. We do actually have like a little announcement that we Next week is Thanksgiving so we'll be off. Oh, we do actually have like a little announcement that we... What is it? Next week is Thanksgiving, so we'll be off. Oh.

All of this to say happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, hairless or extra hairy. The announcement is I have hairs on my nips and Brandy doesn't. That is your warning. There you go. I have hairs on my nips and Brandy doesn't. That is your warning. There you go. And now we shall do an ad. What the fuck? You have a butt plug ready for our Patreon?

Yeah. Sign up at the Bob Moss tier on our Patreon and you get a complimentary butt plug sent to you direct from Brandy. That's not true. That's false advertising. We've got no butt plugs available on our Patreon. But what we do have are— You could stick those cards anywhere you want. That is true. You can do whatever you want with that card, that sticker.

Roll that sticker up. Stick it right up your butthole. No one cares. All right. Well— If that's what you're into, you do it. Join us on Patreon, won't you? Where we have

oodles of bonus episodes. They are full-length meaty boys. We're not cheating yet. We're not holding back on the meats. You could just listen and listen for hours. Yeah, wouldn't you like more of this content? I think you would. I think you would. And you know, you like more of this content? I think you would.

I think you would. And you know, you get a bunch of other stuff when you sign up. Yeah. Oh, am I supposed to list the other stuff? You can if you want. Access to the Discord. Oh, wow. Bad free episodes.

Amazing. Day early. 10% off merch. All that stuff is available at various levels. You spat all the way across. There's no way I spat at you. Randy, it landed on my nose. I'm very sorry.

I hit my peas very hard. Yeah. Preposterously hard. So it's funny. So this is still part of our Patreon ad. Okay, great. Keep listening. Uh-huh.

No. David's sister, Caitlin, her husband, Chris, he says that all of the ponds pop their peas. He calls them the pea-poppin' ponds. Uh-huh. So I am becoming a pea-poppin' pond.

How is that part of our Patreon ad? It's not. That's why I said that. It was a lie. You lied to the listeners. Yes, just like I lied when we said we had butt plugs available on Patreon. Also, our tits aren't available there anywhere either. So, sorry, sir.

Well, now that you've lied to the listeners and destroyed all the trust and faith in us, which is really the only thing we have in trust and faith in us. Oh, jeez. Which is really the only thing we have in this world is our good word. I guess I will. Our good word? I guess I will tell you about a tech rapist. Yeah, what does that even mean? This dude raped some technology.

I don't think that's what it means. Just a whole bunch of floppy disks. Feeling violated. Floppy dicks, am I right? The best part. I don't know what that means. The best part was watching that pop into your head. And the moment where you're like, oh my God, a brilliant joke. I will say, Brady, I'm liking our vibe today.

I think it's pretty good. What's happening? I don't know. I'm feeling extra relaxed. Yeah, I feel pretty relaxed, too. You think it was all the Cheez-Its I ate? Yeah, I get here and I'm like, where are we going to lunch? And Kristen's like, I don't know.

I just ate a whole bunch of Cheez-Its. Okay. Now, let me tell you, folks. The white cheddar Cheez-Its. Oh, I don't like those ones. No, they're so good. What are you trying to do? Is there like a powder all over them?

Yeah, a delicious powder. No. No, thank you. Okay, well, I won't share with you. Okay, well, I won't share with you. Okay, great. Anyway, I think that's the secret sauce to the magic of this episode. I don't know what's going on with you. Obviously, it's not white cheddar cheese.

No, I think I'm like, you know, I'm feeling the, like, we're really close to the wedding now. I'm just like, I'm feeling a lot of excitement because everything's done and ready to go. Yeah. I'm just like, I'm feeling a lot of excitement because everything's done and ready to go. And yeah, I'm just like. Walking on sunshine. Whoa. OK, sorry. That was unnecessary. I liked it.

Yeah. Well, good. That's what I'll be singing to you at your wedding. Are you going to sing it while I walk down the aisle? Oh, my God. You'd be so. Can you imagine how awful that would be? Seriously, stop

and think about how awful that would be. It would not be great. Have you seen the videos of brides who feel that it's necessary to sing as they walk down the aisle? No, that's not a thing. It is a thing. They sing as they walk. As they're walking down the aisle. No.

No. Yeah. I don't know why this is popping into my head, but this is the first thing that popped into my head. Uh-huh. Only Celine Dion could do that. Yeah, exactly. You have to be, how fucking good of a singer do you have to be to be able to pull that off? Well, and you have to be a little goofy. Yes.

Like Celine Dion. Yes. Just the right a little goofy. Yes. Like Celine Dion. Yes. I'm the right amount of goofy. Yeah. But you're telling me that just regular Joe Schmoes. Yeah. Are. Oh, God.

That's terrible. I'm going to have to watch a lot of those videos, though, because I do like to laugh. I do like to laugh. You sound like Uncle Albert from fucking Mary Poppins. I love to laugh. Ha ha ha ha. I loved that song.

Me too. One time my grandma yelled at me because I was singing it when I was supposed to be sleeping. I was a child, obviously. I feel like. I don't think you needed to add that. No, probably not. All right.

That's fair. Okay. You know, here's the thing, Brandy. This tech rapist, although it sounds like it might be a hilarious story about floppy disks. It's not. And so I think maybe I'm stalling. I think maybe you are. We do eventually have to do this because we have a Zoom call to get to.

Oh, yes. Apologies. All right. Well, here we go. You're going to hate this. Oh, good. Good, good, good. You are legitimately on a rapist theme.

I know. I knew you were going to point it out, like, immediately. Yeah. I don't mean to be. You know what I tried to do? What? Well, I was like, oh, it's almost her wedding. Maybe I should do, like, a family annihilator thing for Brandy.

As a wedding gift to me. And then I started looking into a case, and I was like, this is the worst thing ever. And I was like, fucking Brandy. Nope, nope, nope, nope. And then I chose this one, which is really bad. Stick with it, folks. I don't know why I said it that way. Anyway, it was late 1984 in Lubbock, Texas, and a serial rapist was on the loose. He had a pretty consistent M.O. He attacked women on or near the campus of Texas Tech University. He approached them at night when they were alone and often when they were parking their cars.

Oh, gosh. He always needed help from them. You know, maybe a set of jumper cables. But once he engaged them in conversation, he'd pull a knife on them and rape them. After the attack, he'd smoke cigarettes. This happened a few times in late 1984 and early 1985. We obviously don't know whether every victim reported the rape to the police, but several of them did.

And it seems that every time police had the survivor work with a sketch artist to get a picture of what this rapist might look like. But it was tough. The sketches all looked kind of sort of similar, but also sort of not. But there were a few things that investigators knew for sure. The man they dubbed the tech rapist was a young black man who cursed a lot and smoked cigarettes like a goddamn chimney. Oh. So there you go. Great. This was a pretty scary time for women on campus.

And it was a pretty scary time for black men on campus. One black male student at Texas Tech said that the composite sketches all looked different enough that a lot of the black men just stayed off campus at night for fear that people would think they were the tech rapist. Wow. Oh. I was waiting for it to dawn on you. Fuck, I get it now. It's not technology.

It stands for Texas Tech. He's not raping floppy disks at all. No. Well, not to our knowledge. Okay. No floppy disks came forward. I'm sorry. Weeks went by.

And then on March 24th, 1985, the tech rapist struck again. It was about 10 p.m. and Michelle Mallon was trying to park her car. Michelle was 20 years old and she was a sophomore at Texas Tech. Parking spaces were always hard to find on campus, so that night she did what a lot of students did. She parked her car nearby off campus in the St. John's United Methodist Church parking lot. As soon as she got parked, a man approached her vehicle. She rolled down her window and he kind of told her, you know, oh, I'm in a jam. He wondered if he could borrow a set of jumper cables. And Michelle was like, I don't even know if I have any. This is my grandparents' car. The next thing she knew, the man flung her car

door open and shoved her into the passenger seat. Michelle screamed. She bit the man's right thumb, but he put her in a chokehold and held a knife to her throat. He told her he wanted sex, and she said no. She told him she was a virgin and that she wanted to wait for marriage, but that didn't matter to him. He drove her car to a vacant field and he attacked her for more than three hours. Oh, my gosh. At times, he smoked cigarettes. He also robbed her. She didn't have much. She had like $2, a Timex watch, and a small diamond ring.

But he took all that. And when he decided that he was done attacking her, he drove to a neighborhood and traumatized. Michelle drove back to her dorm and called the police. By this point, four other women had been attacked in very similar ways by what appeared to be the same attacker. The tech rapist needed to be stopped. So investigators decided to get more aggressive.

They increased their presence on campus, just kind of keeping an eye out for suspicious activity. But they didn't really see anything. So they decided to do some undercover work. Female police officers posed as college students and just kind of hung out around campus late at night, hoping that the tech rapist would take the bait. It was a long shot. Yeah. And it worked. Oh, my gosh.

Yup. They'd been doing this undercover work for, like, about a week when a police officer named Rosanna Lou Bagby, posing as a college student, sat down at Mr. Gotti's Pizza in Lubbock. You ever been to a Mr. Gotti's Pizza? No. Is that a chain? Evidently. It has closed down. I believe it was a buffet situation and didn't quite make it through the Rona. Have you been to a Mr. Gotti's? No, I just briefly Googled it. I could be completely wrong about everything. Okay, great. Be my first error.

I do not like a buffet. I don't like a buffet either, but what I do like is, okay. You're going to mention dessert pizzas. I know you are. That's exactly what I was going to say. We've been friends for too long, and that's the problem. I know you. I know that the one thing you like is that they always have the dessert pizzas.

Dessert pizzas. That's right. Yep. I just don't trust other people. No, neither do I. I want to minimize the number of people who come into contact with my food. Yes, as do I. I don't like buffets of any sort.

No. Absolutely not. Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah. All right. I'm looking forward to your buffet wedding. There's no buffet at my wedding. I know there's no buffet at your wedding. A personal dessert pizza will be delivered to each guest.

There's kind of a pie buffet at my wedding. Oh, well, there's always a – that's – That's different. I don't know why it's different, but it is. It really is. You can have as many of those pieces of pie as you want. I'm going to. Please do.

It's open pie bar. Open pie bar. At what point would you shame me? I wouldn't shame you. What if other people weren't getting pie because I was— Well, then you should have gotten to the pie table faster. Really? If you saw me wolfing down pies and, like, your mother was like, I sure would like a piece of pie, you'd be like, too bad, Mom.

You should have hustled over. You should have hustled over. Christine ate it all already. Don't worry. We got plenty of pie. Great. Lots of pie. Plenty of pie to go around.

Boy, I really am stalling, aren't I? Okay, so she goes to Mr. Gotti's Pizza. May have been a buffet hard to know. Probably, though, right in the 80s in a college town. Yeah. Yeah. You think I had a salad bar? Of course they did. I do love a salad bar. You do love a college town. Yeah. Yeah. You think I had a salad bar? Of course they did.

I do love a salad bar. You do love a salad bar. See, I think you like buffets. No. You just don't want to be the person who likes buffets. No, I like any of the food

on buffets. Don't worry. Yes, you do. You like dessert pizzas. You like salad bar stuff. Okay, great. I don't want any of the entrees that are on buffets.

Mm-hmm. But I could do it. I could give me a couple trips to the salad bar. I don't want any of the entrees that are on buffets. Mm-hmm. But I could do it. Give me a couple trips to the salad bar. I'll be just fine. Mm-hmm. Alright. Alright. I guess I like salad bars. Yeah, which are buffets. Uh-huh.

Yeah. Okay. You like to approach a chocolate fountain, do you? No. You don't like a chocolate fountain, do you? No. You don't like a chocolate fountain? Not at a public setting. Oh, okay. You like a private chocolate fountain. I like to be alone with my chocolate fountain.

Chocolate fountain for one. For one. For one. For one. No, because you've got kids sticking their whole fucking hands in that thing. Children are not... Well, you know... Yes, they are, Kristen. Yes, they are. And it's just recycled chocolate. It is.

It's just flowing back through there with kid hand germs all over it. Because the kid didn't have the marshmallow on the stick good enough, and so it fell in, and so they just went in after it. Yeah. All right, well, you've ruined everything, so thank you. You're welcome. When she was at the restaurant, Rosanna spotted a young black male. He appeared to be in his mid-20s. He was sitting alone.

She looked at him, and he looked back at her. She looked at him. What? It's a TikTok thing. Never mind. Sorry. No, please. Go on.

Is that what people sing while they remove their arm hair? See what she did there? Yeah, it was good. Thank you. I'm a perp-perp-perp-perpimal. I'm popping my peas like a pond. No, you're a bee-popping pond! They talked briefly.

He claimed he was waiting for a friend. A brief while later, Rosanna got up and left. She walked down the road. And sure enough, a few minutes later, as Rosanna was walking through the St. John's United Methodist parking lot, the man pulled up next to her in his car. He rolled his window down. He said his friend had never showed up at the restaurant. Okay, convenient.

He said, I'm Tim Cole. I didn't catch your name. And so they talked a little, and he offered her a ride home, and she said no. So he was like, okay, okay good night and he drove off rosanna's blood ran cold yeah she had dodged an attack from the tech rapist well hold on what i mean that's a hell of a conclusion to jump to you just said yeah you just agreed as soon as i said it you said yeah oh no i don't believe that's quite what i said um okay get this perv off the streets am i right i think that maybe she's jumping to a conclusion

about this poor young man no No, you won't. He might not be the rapist at all because he just said, okay, great, have a good night and didn't try and rape her once. Hmm. But, I mean, don't you think, given all this evidence. There's no evidence. Well, there's a preponderance of evidence that he is, in fact, a serial rapist.

I mean, you heard him at the pizza place. He talked in and, you know, drove up, said hi. Yeah, but see, caught him. The thing he did

at the end that the rapist was not doing is that this man drove away. That's kind of the key part to not being a rapist is just to not race. Yeah, well, you're an idiot. Luckily, other officers had been nearby and they'd run that creep's license plate.

Oh, no. They realized that he'd actually reported a robbery a few days earlier. Like when he was robbed? Yeah, yeah. Uh-huh. So the next day they showed up at Tim Cole's house. Also, did they take into consideration that none of the, as far as I know, based on the information that you've given us to this point, that none of the victims had said, like, that he introduced himself by his name to them.

You know, that's a really good point. I hadn't even thought about that. It is interesting, isn't it? Yeah. You know what's funny? And I didn't even include it here. He handed her his driver's license. Yeah, he's not a rapist.

When you give someone all of your information. I mean, I guess stranger rape is the least common form of rape. Well, I don't think that's because they're giving a full introduction before they're raping someone. Mm-hmm. Oh, no. So they showed up at Tim Cole's house. They told Tim that they were following up on the robbery and they needed to get his picture to help with the investigation.

Tim thought that was weird, but, you know, he said okay. He sat down on his living room couch, and he smiled for the picture, and the officers went on their way. Tim lived with his younger brother, Reggie. They were both students at Texas Tech. And Reggie had been downstairs getting ready for class when he heard people upstairs, so he came upstairs, and the officers were gone by that point. And Tim told him, hey, the police were just here. They took a picture of me to help with the robbery investigation. But that doesn't sound right, does it? And Reggie was like, no, it doesn't.

But, you know, oh, well, kind of weird. Tim wasn't too worried. He went about his day and in the meantime investigators took that photo that they said they needed for the robbery investigation and put the photo into a photo lineup and showed it to Michelle. Now, the fun thing about this photo lineup was that Tim's photo really stood out. It was the only Polaroid and he was the only guy in the lineup who got to face the front. In the other five photos, the dudes were facing to the side and just standard boring mug shots. Great. So it's really they're really just drawing the eye right to Tim Cole, who had the audacity to introduce himself to a young woman in a parking lot.

Yep. Great. Not even introduce himself to a woman in a parking lot. They talked in the piece. Yeah. Yeah. But still, we can all agree it's a crime. Am I right?

Michelle looked at the photo lineup and obviously zeroed in on Tim's picture and said, yeah, I think that's him. Do you? She did. Okay. And the officers were super encouraging. They were like, yep, he's a scumbag. Yeah. The next day, detectives showed up at Tim's house.

They told him that, you know, he was being looked at for this rape. And Tim was like, that's ridiculous. I didn't rape anybody. Tim had nothing to hide. So he consented to a search of his home. And he agreed to go downtown to participate in a lineup. His brother Reggie went along with him. Reggie and Tim were close.

They came from a big family of seven kids, and Tim was the oldest, and he'd often acted as a guardian to his younger siblings. At one point, their mom had gone back to school at night, and their dad worked evenings, so Tim took care of the younger kids. And he'd cook, make sure everybody got a bath, got into bed. He was just a stand-up guy. After school, he he joined the Army, and after a few years of that, he got an honorable discharge, and so now he was going to Texas Tech

studying poli-sci. He had no criminal record. But now he had police telling him that he was suspected of rape. So at the police station, they tried to convince him to participate in this lineup. Reggie told him, don't do it. I think we really need to talk to mom. We really need to call mom.

But he says that the police wouldn't let them make that call. And the police were just super casual. You know, they were like, hey, you know, if you're innocent, it can't hurt to be part of this lineup. And that sounded like good logic. Let's just get this over with quickly. I'm innocent, so sure. Surely nothing can happen to me because I didn't do anything. Yeah.

Yeah. Finally, Tim relented. He waived his right to an attorney and he participated in the lineup. He was in a lineup with four other men. Tim, a smoker by any chance? Hmm. Why do you ask? You think that's relevant?

I do. I do think it's relevant because every victim said that the tech rapist was a chain smoker. Okay. You might be interested in this. The police weren't. Neither was the DA. But I'll just tell you that Tim had severe asthma. So no. So, like, from his childhood, he had this very severe asthma.

The dude couldn't have smoked if he wanted to. Like, it was that bad. Yeah. But again, I don't see why you're asking that question. Great! You heard the evidence from the pizza place in the parking lot. That day, detectives brought in two women who said that they'd seen a black man acting suspiciously on campus. So they had those two women come look at the lineup.

But both the women were like, no, none of these guys are the one I saw. What about number four there? Yeah, really think on it. Look real hard at number four. What if I told you he went into a pizza parlor and talked to a white woman? Then police brought Michelle in to come look at the lineup. What makes it a pizza parlor? Is that where they're giving hand jobs?

What does make it a pizza parlor? Surely there's got to be something fancier about it. pizza parlor. Surely there's got to be something fancier about it. I know what it takes to be a pizza hut, but I don't know what it takes to be a pizza parlor. I know what it takes to be a pizza shop. That's right. Garlic dressing. Now, okay, a pizza parlor. Do you think that's like where they have some video games? I actually thought maybe it meant that they have ice cream. Oh, maybe. Would you Google that real quick? I feel like we need to get to the bottom of that.

I put too many Z's in. Did you have pizzazz parlor? Because that's a totally different thing. No, I was like pizza parlor. That sounded like I put too many I's, but pizza parlor. Don't you think, like, if I wanted to open up a business where I did vajazzling, like 2002 style vajazzling, don't you think pizzazz parlor would be, like, a good name for it if you wanted to kind of fly a little under the radar? You wouldn't want to just call it Vajazz Parlor.

No, because, you know, you don't want the neighborhood upset. So you call it Pizazz Parlor. And everyone kind of knows you're putting beads on vaginas. But, you know, you're not being too flashy about it. You're not too in the face about it. A pizza parlor is just a restaurant or other business establishment whose primary menu item is pizza. I am so disappointed in that answer. So am I.

That's such bullshit. Yeah. So just anyone can be calling themselves a parlor. That's right. All right. Well, that's. Oh, according to this, they have to be offering hand jobs in the back. That makes sense.

Yeah. Gross. Just kidding. It didn't say that. I hope they change their gloves. Nope. Same gloves they used to spin that dough. Ma'am, you are disgusting.

Sometimes you take it too far. Oh, yeah, it's only me. It is only you. Only you. Is that what you'll sing going down the aisle? You can make these jokes disgusting. What song are you parodying? It's only you.

I don't know. Man, sometimes it's like sitting across from Weird Al. It's so amazing. I look nothing like Weird Al. How dare you? If anyone looks like Weird Al, it's me. It is you with your curly hair. And your nipples.

You think Weird Al has hairs growing out of his nips? I bet he does. I bet he does. I wonder if he has to tweeze them as well. No, he probably just lets those grow. To be a man. Yeah. The societal expectations.

It's too much. It's too much. It is. And yet I am excited to wax my arms. Probably the excitement will end as soon as I do it. Yeah. And then I'll just have one patch of bare skin for your wedding. I should wax my arms

for the wedding. You're so obsessed with me. Maybe you should attach, you should get nipple extensions in time for the wedding. Sure. Why not?

That'll blow David away. What if I got one of those hair feathers, but I put it on my nipple instead of in my hair? Are you talking about like the hair feathers that they always wore in Teen Mom in like 2008? Why did I get one of those on my nipple? I think that's a wonderful idea.

Perhaps your best yet. Nipple feathers. I'm going to get a tissue. Oh, here. I could shoot it on down to you. Shoot it on down. Shoot it on down. Boop.

All right. Nipple feathers coming to a pizzazz parlor near you. I mean, that does seem smart. It does. I mean, yeah, if you're going to be doing vajazzling, also be offering nipple feathers. Well, and you don't want a vagina feather. No. That feels like it'd get messy so fast.

All right. So we won't do that. Okay, great. Well, we'll have to have a policy maybe written up on some poster board about how we only do the feathers above the belly button. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well above the belly button. Yeah. All right. Well, that's good.

Okay. This is a weird episode. It sure is. Can't you feel it every now and then when you're like, this is a weird one? This is weird. We're on one today. So, oh, gosh. Yeah.

Boy, I wonder why I keep trying to avoid this story. So police then brought Michelle to look at the lineup. And she identified Tim as the man who'd attacked her. Okay. And Reggie said that the police reacted like they'd just won the Super Bowl. Yep. As they should have. They'd caught a serial rapist.

They'd captured the tech rapist. No, they didn't. Oh, so you're on the side of rape. No. Terrible. I myself am on the side of justice. Okay, well, that's not what this is, so. They caught him, arrested Tim, and charged him with aggravated sexual assault.

Great. Victory. Great. Victory. No. Well, okay, so here's the thing. There was one guy who was a little surprised that Tim had been arrested. It was the detective supervisor for the Texas Tech Police Department. You see, he had suspected that the tech rapist was actually this guy named Jerry Wayne Johnson. Jerry worked near the campus.

He was a career criminal. His last name was Johnson. He just had to do it. Yeah. But this detective supervisor over at Texas Tech couldn't convince the Lubbock Police Department to follow up on Jerry Wayne Johnson. And I mean, I don't even know why I'm mentioning this because it obviously doesn't matter because

they obviously caught the right guy. You're mentioning it because that is the actual tech rapist. No, they caught Tim. We know it because he has three names. That is how you know. Yes. That is how you know. Yes.

Yeah, so the case moved forward, and it seems, unfortunately, that the DA did lose a little confidence in the case. For all this talk about Tim definitely being the tech rapist, they didn't really have anything tying him to the other rapes. In fact, and this was a bummer. He actually hadn't even moved to Lubbock until after the rape started. Oh, okay. Well, that is a bummer. Yeah, but just ignore that. He wasn't charged with those, and really, aside from Michelle's word, there wasn't anything tying Tim to the rape,

and that was partly because some of the evidence had been destroyed. See, the rapist had touched the cigarette lighter in Michelle's car quite a bit. Again, chain smoker. So it had his fingerprints on it. But oopsies, the very experienced technician who was supposed to recover those prints accidentally did the opposite, accidentally destroyed the prints. Oh, great. District Attorney Jim Bob Darnell was in a real pickle. How do you feel about that name?

Jim Bob is the most hilarious. I know. Oh, gosh, I shouldn't say this. But, okay. I'll say it and maybe we'll cut it. Okay. Don't you think that everyone named Jim Bob, without exception, is a sexual predator. I was going to say wears overalls.

Yeah, maybe they like molest people while they wear overalls. I don't know. But don't you think they're all sexual predators? That seems unfair. I mean, it's unfair that they're predators. I mean, it's unfair that they're predators. You're telling me there's a normal Jim Bob on this planet? I bet he goes by James Robert.

He doesn't. He goes by Jim Bob. No, no, no. The normal Jim Bob goes by James Robert. You don't even know he's a Jim Bob. Okay, if there's ever a serial molester who they're like, well, he's too smart. We just can't catch him. They just need to Google James Robert and they'll find the guy because, yeah, that's what anyone who's smart and they're named Jim Bob. They just go by James Robert.

Right. And then they get to continue being a molester without being caught. Great. I'm just kidding. If you decide to go by James Robert, you're obviously not a molester. Obviously. But you're probably wearing overalls. No, not if you're choosing to go by James Robert. If you're choosing to go by James Robert, you've like left the small town. Yeah. You maybe have a strained relationship with your parents because they named you Jim Bob.

And when they call you, they still call you Jim Bob on the phone. And you're like, oh. Anyway, I mean, you see how well I'm doing with this case right here. I just like I tell two seconds of it. Then I have to turn away and rant about Jim Bob's. You think we'll get in bad trouble for me saying that all Jim Bob's are molesters? I bet you've hurt a couple Jim Bob's feelings out there. I think I've helped them.

I think they're like, you know what? This is the push I need to become James. To become James Robert, yeah. James Robert, yeah. All right. You're welcome. District Attorney Jim Bob Darnell, who I don't actually know if he's done any. Well, okay, let's just.

You can't say that christian no word on if he's actually did a little kids we have no way of knowing this is all alleged except no one's alleged it it's just all right sorry he was in a real pickle okay because? Because his name was Jim Bob. And also, he, you know, had really no evidence of, you know, a weak case. Yeah, which is a real problem. Yeah, so he came to Tim's defense attorney, Mike Brown, with a deal. Tim could plead guilty and in exchange receive five years of probation. Tim didn't even really have to think the offer over. He was like, no way, I'm not pleading guilty to something I didn't do.

Oh, gosh. I get where he's coming from. You've got concerns. I sure do. Because he's going to get so much worse than that when they take him to trial and lie about him. He had reason to believe that he wouldn't be found guilty, though. And not just like the normal, like, I didn't do anything, so I can't be found guilty. Yeah, so none of it added up.

You've already asked if he was a smoker, so this is when I do the big reveal. Oh, no! On top of that, he had an alibi. Oh, shit! And it was a really good alibi. His brother Reggie had some friends over on the night in question. Tim hadn't hung out with them a whole bunch that evening,

but he'd been there the whole evening studying. So literally five other people could attest to his whereabouts that evening. Plus, his defense attorney, Mike Brown, really did his homework. He looked into the case and saw that similar rapes had continued to occur on or around Texas Tech in the months after Tim's arrest. Weird. Yeah. It's almost like they didn't catch the guy.

It's almost like that, but can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to admit that? Like, what could be worse than owning a mistake? How about wrongfully convicting a man of multiple rapes? Oopsies. Well, if that's what you're afraid of. It's just the one rape? Oh, okay. Okay, still bad.

Still bad. A very similar attack occurred about a month before Michelle was attacked, but the fingerprints in the victim's car didn't match Tim's. Yeah, because they matched the actual rapist. Through his research. What was his name? Huh? James Wayne something. What was his name?

Huh? James Wayne something. If you'll allow me to speak, ma'am. You're on such a tear with your nipple feather idea. You just feel like you can interject all willy-nilly. Willy feathers. You think there's a... Well, what does it dangle off of exactly? Just...

The trunk. The trunk. Yeah. I feel like that feather would get real smelly real fast well yeah it would but it'd look nice there's no denying that you know you're right and I mean like I guess the way you sell it yeah is it's like it's to smell funky down there anyway. No, you're so wrong. Okay. You're so wrong.

How do you sell it? As like, you need multiple of these. You change them every day you wash them. Not it's going to smell down there anyway. You can't change them out yourself. You got to get that done professionally at the pizzazz parlor. You're telling me only you can wrap a feather? Only you can wrap a feather around my dick.

I think you're going to be not charmed by the type of fellas who want that service. And what's so special about the way you're doing it that we can't do a DIY job? It is a professional service. Yeah, but aren't you just taking a string? How do you want to thread those pubes into that little bead? Oh, that's right. That is how you're doing it. My apologies.

I was literally envisioning just like a feather on a string that you tie around the dong. No, no, no. It's like an extension. You take a little hook, you get a little pube, you put a little bead on it, and then you put that feather into the bead clamp. It closed. And that thing's going to last you, you know, a couple washes. Easy. So many good ideas. I think you should get multiple feathers just to really make it look like a dream catcher down there. You could really get a peacock look going on yeah

there's something we could do with the cock yeah yeah peacock your cock we just we just got to keep brainstorming until we get it right i'm very sorry for this episode. This episode's ridiculous. It is ridiculous. Anyway, let's see here. Maybe I need to stop covering rapes for a while. Maybe. I'm just fatigued. These are terrible cases. Okay, here we go.

Through his research, Mike found out about Jerry Wayne Johnson. And in his estimation, Jerry Wayne Johnson. That's the actual tech rapist. Well, you know, we're not saying that quite just yet, but he certainly seemed like a much more likely suspect than Tim had ever been. So his lawyer was like, OK, why aren't you looking at this guy? But the judge didn't allow information about Jerry Wayne Johnson to be presented at trial. That's what one source said. Another source said that the defense did try to bring him up multiple times at trial,

but every time the prosecution objected and every time the judge sustained. The judge also didn't allow information about Tim's severe asthma to be presented at trial. Well, that seems very pertinent and should have been allowed in. Yeah, because what we know, like three things about this guy. Yeah. One of them is that he's a chain smoker. Yeah. And you're telling me this guy literally just cannot smoke cigarettes.

Yeah, that's pretty pertinent. Yeah. But, you know, Tim was tried in front of a jury of his peers. Just kidding, he was tried in front of an all-white jury. Yeah, exactly. His trial took place in September of 1986 and it lasted two days. For the prosecution, Michelle testified about what happened to her that night. She identified Tim as her attacker. And the prosecution called a forensic examiner to the stand who testified that the seminal fluid in the rape kit indicated that the rapist had type A. Did I say that wrong? Seminal? No, that's right. In my mind, I was like,

is it seminal? But no, it's not. It's for sure not. Anyway, continuing on. Indicated that the rapist had type A blood. And Tim had? Type A blood. Bada bing, bada boom. Yeah, how many people, though, have type A blood? Just Tim. Thanks for asking.

No more questions. Also, and I think this is interesting, and as your feather business indicates, I think you'll be an expert in this. That same expert testified that pubic hairs that were collected in the rape kit had similar characteristics to Tim Cole's pubic hair. Now, I'm no pubespert. But don't all short and curlies have basically the same characteristics is that not the most ridiculous thing you've ever heard yes that's ridiculous a pube's a pube i think the only time it's relevant is if someone is a natural redhead then that does really narrow the field a little bit. But if you've just got some brown pubes, I'm sorry, but you could be anybody. Yeah.

All right. We've talked a lot more about pubes on this episode than you had planned. Yes. You had only planned for a brief conversation. I have no pube content in my case. Wow. Well, that explains why I've had to really load mine up with pube content to make up for your lack of it. It's exhausting podcasting with you and having to carry the pube load.

Don't say pube load! Okay, for real, though. All right, I guess I don't know why I wanted to argue about how similar pubes are. But yeah, a pube's a pube. Anyway, do not fight me on this. The prosecution also busted out a pack of cigarettes and implied that they belonged to Tim. They actually belonged to his brother Reggie. But, you know,

I'm not interested in the truth and neither is the prosecution. Yeah, clearly. When the defense took over, they tried to establish Tim's alibi for the night of the attack. He'd been studying at home and his brother

and several of his brother's friends had all been there hanging out. So Tim's brother and his friends testified that Tim had been at home on the night of the attack. Sure. Great. So he can't be off raping. Unless they're all lying. Right? Okay.

The jury deliberated for six hours. Oh, boy. They found him guilty. Yeah. Tim was stunned by the verdict. He really believed that since he hadn't committed the crime, there was no way the jury would find him guilty. But they had. And then things got worse.

During a morning recess right before he was about to be sentenced, Tim's family was at the courthouse and Tim and his attorney, Mike Brown, came up to them. And the looks on their faces just like startled the family. Tim walked right up to his brother, Reggie, and said, they got me. Now they're trying to get you. What? Yeah. So that's basically what Reggie said. He was like, what are you talking about?

And Mike cut in and he goes, I just found out that the DA is going to seek a warrant for your arrest. And Reggie was like, for what? Yeah. And Mike said, it's for the other rapes. Reggie was stunned. He said, you've got to be joking. And Mike said. That is the laziest police work.

It's evil. Yeah. It's evil. How are they even getting there? They've got nothing. Yeah. But wouldn't it be easy rather than being like,

hey, we got the wrong guy this first time. Well, the jury bought it. So we've got this other black guy who's like on campus in the area. Let's just blame him. Oh, my gosh. Mike said, Reggie,

I want you to do exactly what I say. I want you to go out this door right now, go across the street, and go down the alley. My secretary is there. I want you to get in the car and lay on the floor. You've got to go now because if I don't get you out of town, I won't be able to get you out of jail. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So Reggie did as he was told. God, I've got goosebumps. He got the hell out of town. Years later, their mom, Ruby, couldn't talk about that moment without just bursting into tears. She said, that's how heartless those people are. They took my son and

then they wanted to take another. Later that day, Tim was sentenced. He was asked if he had anything to say, and Tim said he did. He said, Your Honor, I am sorry that young lady was raped, but I did not rape her. And the judge sentenced him to 25 years. Oh, my gosh. That night, Tim was transferred to a Texas state prison, and he sobbed all through the night. And in a nearby cell sat Jerry Wayne Johnson. Jerry knew exactly who Tim was, and he knew that Tim was innocent. And that night, he just sat there and listened to Tim cry.

And that night he just sat there and listened to Tim cry. Tim's imprisonment sent shockwaves through the family. Their big brother was gone. One of Tim's brothers, Rodney, ended up turning to drugs. His brother, Sean, said that the whole situation just changed him. He said he would get into arguments all the time over nothing. He said, I became the same people that locked him up. Reggie was eventually able to come back to town.

He was never charged with the other rapes. They had literally nothing on him. But I mean, they didn't have anything on Tim either. So Tim appealed his convictions and all of his appeals were denied. Years passed. Prison was really hard on him. Twice he was discovered unconscious in his cell because of asthma attacks. Oh, my gosh. His family was really worried about him.

They knew he wasn't getting good medical care in prison. Yeah. And they knew he was being made to work in the prison cotton fields. Jesus. Which is the grimmest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, no kidding. The dust was horrible for his asthma. But who cares about Tim, right?

He was a rapist. No, he's not. For sure. At one point, Tim became eligible for parole. But in order to get out, you know, he had to confess to the crime. And he was like, no, I didn't do this. He constantly wrote letters to his family. And in one letter to his mom, he wrote, I would rather spend all 25 years living in prison as a convicted rapist than to come out and live in the free world as a registered sex offender,

all for a crime I did not commit. Wow. What do you think you would do? I have no idea. I don't know either. I would have been very tempted to take the plea deal. The plea deal. But at the same time, I say that with my knowledge of what happens in these cases.

It's tough because I – see, I kind of am with Tim. It's like if I had an alibi that five other people could attest to and I knew there was this other suspect. I don't know. I might. Oh, God. I don't know. It's hard to say. Yeah. The thing is, for all the horrors that Tim experienced, he believed that he would one day be exonerated.

In fact, he wanted three things. He wanted vindication, exoneration, and a full pardon from the governor. Yeah. And he knew he'd get it. The truth would eventually come out. He told his family, I believe in the justice system, even though it does not believe in me. Oh, that's heartbreaking. I know.

Meanwhile, Michelle struggled. After the attack, she dropped out of Texas Tech and moved back home to Baytown. I don't Meanwhile, Michelle struggled. After the attack, she dropped out of Texas Tech and moved back home to Baytown. I don't know where that is. Baytown. It's Houston area. I forget you know weirdly a lot about Texas. I believe it's a suburb near Houston. Very good. All right. I could be talking on my ass here. I mean, that's fine. I know it's in Texas. She got counseling. She became a nanny.

She got married. And she took comfort in knowing that she'd help put away the tech rapist. She never doubted that they got the right guy. Years passed. In fact, 10 years passed. By 1995, the statute of limitations on Michelle's rape expired. And that's when Jerry Wayne Johnson came forward. Yeah.

Or at least he tried to. Jerry was in prison, serving life plus 99 years after being convicted for two sexual assaults that were alarmingly similar to the assault on Michelle. Weird. Yeah. Jerry wrote letters to Jim Bob Darnell and to a few judges confessing that he was the one who'd attacked Michelle that night. He said that Tim Cole had been wrongfully convicted. He said that Tim Cole had been wrongfully convicted. But no one responded to Jerry's letters. Wow.

Yeah. Because they don't fucking care. Mm-hmm. It'd be inconvenient. Yeah, it would be. If it were true. It's better to just, it's easier to just ignore. Yeah. For what it's worth, Jerry kept trying.

He wrote a lot of letters admitting to this crime, saying that Tim Cole had been wrongfully convicted, but no one in power wanted to hear it. Meanwhile, Tim sat in prison. He had no idea that someone was trying to take responsibility for this crime. And he never found out. Wow. Because Tim died on December 2, 1999. Shut up. He was 39 years old.

He'd been imprisoned for 13 years. He died alone in his cell from an asthma attack. Yep. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. His family was devastated. When a prison official called Ruby to tell her that her son had died, she dropped the phone, and she screamed, You all have killed my child. Oh.

Ruby mourned the loss of what Tim's life could have been. He'd had so much potential, and he'd been made to suffer. At his funeral, Ruby said, and he'd been made to suffer. At his funeral, Ruby said, Today the world knows Tim as a convicted rapist, but one day the whole country and the world will know who my son is. So Tim's family mourned his loss,

but Jerry Wayne Johnson didn't know that Tim had died. He kept writing letters. The next year, Jerry wrote to another judge. Again, he admitted to raping Michelle. He said that Tim Cole had been wrongfully convicted. And this time something did happen, but it wasn't much. The Innocence Project of Texas has a big write-up on their website about this, and it says, quote, the case was moved to a different judge and rejected without comment.

Okay, great. Right. Clearly, if Tim Cole had been wrongfully imprisoned, the state of Texas didn't want to know about it. But finally, in May of 2007, eight years after Tim's death, Jerry wrote another letter, this time to Tim Cole himself. He sent it to Ruby's house. One of Tim's brothers spotted it in the mail and thought it was like a sick joke. But Ruby opened it. The letter essentially said, you may not remember me, but your lawyer tried to show that I committed the rape that Lubbock wrongfully convicted you of.

Ruby was stunned. She told the rest of her family. She contacted their attorney, Mike Brown, and they took the letter to the media. Tim's brother, Corey Session, didn't waste time. He called the Lubbock Avalanche Journal first because he remembered that in 1986 they'd ran a story that read, Tech Rapist Convicted. And Corey was like, I thought they should be the first ones to try to help clear his name. And with some convincing from Corey, a reporter went to interview Jerry Wayne Johnson. Jerry told the reporter the whole story.

He gave a detailed account of attacking Michelle. He talked about how he'd followed Tim Cole's trial and how he'd listened to Tim cry that first night in prison. So the story was out there, and soon the Innocence Project of Texas got involved. Students from Texas Tech's law school were assigned to look into the case. But Brandy, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, but what about our friends in the DA's office? No. Isn't this going to make them look bad? Good. People were saying that they'd gotten the wrong guy.

Yes, they did. They were saying that they'd ignored it when the real rapist tried to come forward. Also accurate. So embarrassing. So the DA's office decided to prove everybody wrong once and for all. They, hold on. They're going to do DNA testing. Yeah.

On the cigarette butts. Oh, no, on rape kits. They have rape kits. And it's going to show that testing. Yeah. On the cigarette butts. Oh, no, on rape kits. They have rape kits. And it's going to show that they had the wrong guy. Whose fucking side are you on? I'm on the side of justice. They are right and they're going to prove it.

I actually kind of love that, though. Isn't that wonderful? Isn't it just delicious? Yes. Yes. Yeah, so they got that evidence, sent it off for testing, da-da-da-da-da. And on May 19, 2008, the DNA results came back. And, oh, shit. Mm-hmm.

It wasn't Tim. Tim Cole had not raped Michelle. Yeah. It had been Jerry Wayne Johnson all along. Yeah, he told you that. Yeah. It had been Jerry Wayne Johnson all along. Yeah, he told you that.

Yeah. Also, seems like some of the people who investigated the case had tried to tell you that. Yep. The DA's office was unsettled by these results. So, you know, they sat on them. For how long? Well, you know, a while. Eventually, they did call up Michelle and they let her know that she had convicted the wrong guy. Oh, yeah.

It's all on her. Yeah. Okay, great. Michelle was devastated. Yeah, I'm sure she was. She said, I felt total guilt. My words, my pointing the finger at him were the reason he went to prison. I felt just terrible.

I never wanted the wrong he went to prison. I felt just terrible. I never wanted the wrong man to be convicted. She was so ashamed. About a month after Michelle received that news, Tim's family found out about the DNA results. Not a moment too soon. Yeah, no shit. It confirmed what they'd always known, but it wasn't enough. They wanted what Tim had always wanted. They wanted his name to be cleared. But the fact that Tim had died made this very complicated. Also, the fact that Lubbock didn't want to admit any mistakes made it complicated, but you probably already picked up on that.

Yeah. So, working through the Innocence Project, Tim's family reached out to Michelle. She was very surprised to hear from them. She figured they hated her, but they told her they didn't. Ruby told Michelle that she and Tim had both been victims. Tim's family told her that the system had failed her and it had failed Tim as well. Yeah. So Michelle joined the fight to get Tim Cole's name cleared. She said, I was the one who picked their son out of a lineup and I wanted to rectify it. I wanted to make it right. I mean,

maybe Lubbock doesn't, but I do. Wow. Mm hmm. And wow, Lubbock didn't want to make it right. He sure didn't. But Jeff Blackburn, who, by the way, you may remember from the San Antonio 4 case, he was the attorney who liked to say all the wild liberal shit while his friend would sit there and be like, Yeah. Jeff looked into the Texas state constitution and found that a court of inquiry allows you to go back and seek redress. Is it redress or redress? I have no idea. Ranch dressing.

If someone's reputation has been harmed. If you can show that their name needs to be cleared, then they're entitled to their day in court. And that's what they were trying to get was this day in court. This was quite the process. Yeah, I bet. At one point, Jeff said, this case shows how completely broken the judicial system is in Texas. We don't listen to people who are innocent, and we don't even listen when people say they're guilty. Yeah. I mean, that's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. But finally, in February of 2009,

they got that court of inquiry. Attorneys for the Innocence Project presented their whole case and, of course, talked about the DNA evidence. And Jerry was there and he confessed to the crime again. He said, I'm responsible for all of this. I'm truly sorry for my pathetic behavior and selfishness. I hope and pray you will forgive me. Wow. What do you think forgive me Wow What do you think of that? What do you think of Jerry? I don't know Yeah so one of his I mean

I can't imagine The dude waited Until the statute of limitations Had run up And he was already In prison for the rest of his life so why did that matter yep if he really i know it's like i i'm i'm so conflicted on this because i'm so glad he came forward yes of course and i mean not just came forward once like he kept he kept at it when no one would listen to him. Yeah, that's that's.

But I mean, something for sure. One of one of Tim's brothers was like, I just think he's a fucking coward because he listened to my brother cry that night and he did nothing. Yeah. And, you know, Michelle seems to feel the same way. Yeah. Michelle seems to feel the same way. After he said that, she pointed her finger at him and she said, I'm going to try and forgive you, but it's going to take a long, hard time. No woman deserves it.

No person deserves what that man got. He could have been a father. He could have been a grandfather right now. I hope you live out your last miserable days in prison and suffer the rest of your life. Wow. Mm-hmm. This whole thing had been awful for Michelle. Mm-hmm.

I think it's really amazing. I mean, she really came forward and helped his family. Yeah. Oh, God. She has this quote that's pretty rough, but I kind of like it. What is it? Let me let me scroll down. OK. OK, well, I should say at first, you know, she seemed to accept all the blame. And I think, unfortunately, she does still carry a lot of blame, even though Ruby told her multiple times, please don't hold on. No, you're a victim in this as well. Yeah, absolutely.

Please don't do this to yourself. Yeah. They went to his grave together. Wow. And Ruby said, I forgive you. Tim forgives you. Yeah. Oh, gosh.

So over time, Michelle, and I think probably the investigation helped, and she saw how flawed it had been. Yeah. And she became really upset. She was particularly upset to see that Jerry had been a very good suspect all along, but he had never been included in the photo lineup and the actual lineup. He had never been brought into this investigation in any way. At one point, Michelle told a reporter, if I had a gun that night, there wouldn't have been a wrongful conviction. He would have been dead and I would have driven his body to the police station. Wow.

Yeah. That's a Texas woman right there. Yeah, it is. It's funny because I'm so not into guns. Yeah. But I can see how you get there of it's like, well, we can't leave this to the court system. Yeah. That would have been the least painful way to go about it, I guess.

Yeah. Good grief. At the court of inquiry, Judge Charles Baird seemed pretty horrified by what he heard. He said, it is the duty of prosecutors not to convict, but to seek justice. And somewhere out in Lubbock, the duty was lost in the tunnel vision of trying to convict Timothy Cole. Duty. Very good, Brandy. He said, the judicial system robbed the Cole family of Tim's love, and I'm sorry for that.

And with that, the judge officially exonerated Tim Cole. There was actually some time in between this, but, you know, boy, let's move along. Tim Cole became the first Texan in state history to receive a posthumous pardon and the first person in American history to receive a posthumous DNA conviction. DNA. Wait, what? Opposite of conviction. Conviction. None.

Oh, boy. You know what? I was so focused and so proud of how I've learned to say posthumous instead of posthumous, which is what my brain wants me to say. It didn't matter that the rest of the sentence made no sense at all. That's fine. All right, great. But Tim's family kept advocating on his behalf.

He wanted vindication, exoneration, and a full pardon from the governor. He'd gotten the first two, and a year later, he got that full pardon. Governor Rick Perry pardoned Tim Cole. Oh, yeah? He sure did,

and judging by the look on Ruby's face during that press conference, I think she feels about as conflicted as I do. I could totally be making that up.

She could love the guy for all I know. But man, I was watching that footage like, yep, yep, yep, yep. I feel weird about it too. But this isn't over. From there, the state passed the Timothy Cole Act, which increased compensation to exonerees up to, I think it was 80K a year per year that they were wrongfully imprisoned. The act also added to the services that are offered to exonerated people, including free college tuition, financial and personal counseling. The act also allowed for the family of the exoneree to get compensation in the event that the person is exonerated after their death.

So how much money did Ruby get? Oh, gosh, I didn't add it all up and I don't know if it was the kind of thing that didn't apply. That's what I was wondering. Was it retroactive? The fact that they've been able to create so much good after Tim's death meant a lot to his family. His brother Reggie said, Tim is doing the same thing in death as he did in life, taking care of people. So Tim got what he wanted, but his mom, Ruby, always wanted one more thing. She wanted him to have an honorary degree from Texas Tech.

Yeah. So the family pushed for it, and officials at Texas Tech refused. What? Are you fucking kidding me? Can you believe this? Yeah, I mean, it's just so gross. Yeah, the family advocated for his honorary degree for years. What the fuck?

But officials at Texas Tech refused to award it, citing a lack of achievement. They said it would not be appropriate because in order to receive a posthumous degree, Tim would have had to complete most of his coursework for the degree and he hadn't. Yeah, because he was fucking wrongfully convicted. Holy shit. Right? That is wild. It's a symbolic gesture. Yeah. It costs you nothing.

It would make a family happy. Holy crap. Yeah, so Ruby wanted that, but they said no, and in 2013 she passed away. Tim's brother, Corey Sessions, said the main thing is she was able to see her greatest prayer. She said, God is going to keep me here long enough to see my son's good name restored. She saw that, and she saw a lot more. But, you know, Corey knew how much it meant to his mom, so he kept advocating for it. He told the media, it was something my mother wanted for Tim, because on his road of life, that was something he would have obtained.

Absolutely. A writer named Fred McKinley, who wrote a book about Tim Cole, started a petition to get Tim that honorary degree. But, you know, the school kept resisting. And Fred said, who's it going to hurt to grant a posthumous honorary degree to Tim Cole? That's exactly how I feel. Exactly.

Who the fuck does that hurt? I feel. Exactly. Who the fuck does that hurt? I swear. Sometimes universities are so fucking stupid. Yeah. I think this is what people think about when, like, they rail against bureaucracy. Like, this is so stupid. Well, we have policies here. Well, can you just kind of use your head and your heart a little bit?

Pull your head out of your ass, Janet. Good Lord. We'll give you a free pubic hair feather if you just get this done. My God. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not be handing out free pubic feathers. Oh, Brandi's got her own policies. This doesn't rise to the level of a free pube feather.

I'm sorry. Monetary value, $60. Yes. I think. I don't know. We haven't said it yet. Yeah, it's pretty expensive if you want me fishing around in your pubes. Wow.

What if they're really nice pubes? You can't. No, no. Yeah, you can't. It's the same price for everyone. Yeah, it's kind of like a haircut. There's no nice pube discount. Maybe there should be.

Maybe you're enjoying yourself. You're thinking, this is kind of wrong that I'm charging this fella the same amount as everybody else. Anyway, eventually the school relented. Good grief. Anyway, eventually the school relented. Good grief. Probably because the media coverage. Yeah. You know, like.

Yeah. And they were like, oh, this is kind of embarrassing. Kind of embarrassing that we've got sticks up our asses and refuse to remove them. Feathers in our pubes. We wish we had feathers in our pubes.

Brandy said she'd do them for free if we just honor, you know, give the degree. But anyway, they awarded Tim Cole an honorary degree in law and social justice. About a year before they did that, the city of Lubbock and the Innocence Project of Texas unveiled a bronze statue of Tim Cole. The statue is in the park and he's facing toward Texas Tech Law School. They hope that Tim's statue and his story will serve as a powerful lesson to future attorneys and judges who attend the school. And that's the story of Tim Cole. Oh, my gosh. I know.

I know. I know. It's a terrible story. Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry. It's a terrible story. Holy shit. You told it very well.

Did I? Because I felt like I had to jump ship. Then get back on the ship. Yeah. Well, you need to break some cruise. I felt like I was on a cruise and I was getting the excursion. Right, yes. You were taking excursions for sure.

Yeah. Michelle did seem to do better in later years. I think it, I'm just talking out my ass a little bit here, but I do think it helped her to talk to his family and have this, I don't know. I do need to cite sources. Yeah. You didn't want to do it at the top because it was going to give everything away. That's exactly right.

Yeah. You thought this time I'd probably catch it, unlike when the fugitive son thing. Well, you were riding high, luckily. I was. Okay. So sources for this, two episodes of the show Vindicated. Innocence Texas has a great write-up on this. Texas Tribune, Texas Monthly, EverythingLubbock.com, the Star-Telegram, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram,

which I think is the same paper. They just changed their names, and I was reading old-timey articles, new-timey articles. You know. New-timey, that's fun. New-timey. Austin Chronicle, did I say that one? Basically, if it's a Texas newspaper. You used it, yeah.

Probably. Yeah. All right. That was terrible. Great. All right, you want to talk about a disappearance? Yes, I do. Okay.

Please tell me it's lighter than my case. Oh, great. Bummer of an episode, doo-dah. I watched, actually I didn't watch, I listened to anummer of an episode. Doodah. I watched. Actually, I didn't watch. I listened to an episode of Dateline. I was very disappointed I could not find the transcript for this episode of Dateline, so I had to actually listen to the podcast.

But it was a Keith Morrison episode, so. You enjoyed yourself. I did. I did immensely. And an article for ChillingCrimes.com. Oh, all right. Elizabeth Liz Sullivan was a spitfire. Her friends described her as the type of person that you just wanted to be around.

And not that it is pertinent to this story in any way. Tell us how she looked. But it was worth mentioning that she was ridiculously beautiful. Liz was a young black woman with the most beautiful smile. She had perfect teeth and the chicest fucking eyebrows I've ever seen. Do I need to look her up or should I not look her up? Don't look her up at the end because I don't want you to get any spoilers. Calm down. But she has eyebrows that are like thick, but like.

Not overdone. No. It's a fine line, isn't it? So good. All right. Calm down. Anyway. Jealous?

Yes. Yes. Because I try and like put a little stuff in my eyebrows and I look like Bert. What do you put in your eyebrows? I don't think you put anything in. I very occasionally do a little pencil in there and then, you know. Yeah, then you use the spoolie. Yeah, spoolie, yeah. And you look like Bert?

I feel like I look like Bert. Here's a trick. Don't put it in the middle. I don't. Thank you. like Bert. Here's a trick. Don't put it in the middle. I don't. Thank you. Anyway, Liz,

who was Liz Ricks at this time, was living in Virginia, where she'd grown up, when she met Matthew Sullivan. Matt was in the Navy, and he was stationed there in Virginia, and the two hit it off. Virginia Beach? I don't know. Sure. Great. Is that where there's a U.S. Navy base?

Wow. All right. Continue. Anyway, the two hit it off and what followed was described as a whirlwind romance. Yeah. That's how it always is with those military guys. That's right. Liz and Matt married in 2010 and Matt was transferred to San Diego.

So I said the company. I meant the couple. God, what a dumbass. Thank you. So the couple, I almost did it again, relocated to Liberty Station, San Diego. Are you worried that, like, when it comes time for you to say I do, you'll say I donk or something, you know, ridiculous because you can't talk? Oh, all right. Well, just think about that.

I don't think that's going to happen. Worry on it, would you? Okay, great. So they relocate to— Honk! Stop it! They relocate to San Diego, and, like, five minutes later, they had two kids. And shortly after that, or actually like in the middle of having the two kids, Matt was deployed. And so Liz found herself

on her own a lot, far from home and taking care of one small children, one small children, one small child and the second one. And so, you know. This is the story of Norm's parents. Really? Yeah. He was in the Navy, sailed the seven seas. Yeah. And, like, I mean, it's kind of gross, but, like, every time he got off the boat. Well, that's basically what happened. Like, yeah.

Yeah. So I think it sounds awful. But, yeah, like, your spouse is left behind to, like, take care of the kids. Yeah. It wasn't long before Liz confided in her friends back home that her marriage wasn't quite what she had thought it would be. When she had first started dating Matt, they had lived this kind of carefree lifestyle. And then they had immediately jumped feet first into a shit ton of responsibility. Yeah.

And it just was not what she thought she was doing or what she expected, I guess. Well, yeah. I mean, you think about it. That's pretty wild. You go from like probably the fun dating thing to, oh, my gosh, we're getting married. Yes. And then all of a sudden you move. Uh-huh. Probably don't know anyone. Yep. And now you're alone with children. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's really rough. Absolutely. And as a result, the relationship suffered. Liz and Matt were living basically separate lives.

They were sleeping in separate bedrooms. And the topic of separation or divorce had come up several times. But the conversations were rarely productive. And on a couple of occasions, the arguments turned physical. In March of 2014, Liz called the police when a conversation about potential custody and child support arrangements had turned ugly. She told police that there was a history of domestic violence in the relationship, and she feared that the argument was going to escalate. But it appears that no arrests or charges came of that call.

What year was this? This was 2014. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. By the fall of 2014, Liz confided in her friend Nathan character that she was done. So Nathan was this like her best friend in San Diego.

So she had just like met him by accident one day. He said that he worked at like an eyeglass store and she came in and she was like really disheveled. And she had like two kids with her and like a giant stroller and he said she was just a flurry like that's how he described her and then she just would not stop talking to him and he loved it they just clicked immediately yeah and she was just like the type of person that like she apologized for her appearance but somehow she still looked just like chic as fuck even though she was oh i totally disheveled for her yeah same um and so like they became fast friends and this was like her best friend in san diego

yeah and so in the fall of 2014 uh liz confided in nathan that she was done with her marriage yeah like it was over nathan and liz had the kind of friendship where they were just unapologetically themselves. They told each other everything and they didn't judge each other. So Nathan didn't think much of it when Liz told him that she had signed up for Tinder. She was still married at the time. And initially she had told him that it was really just to get some attention, just to get some kind of positive attention from men, something she wasn't getting at home. And so she just did it to, like, chat it up a little bit.

But then she met a guy she really liked, a guy named Steve. Liz really enjoyed spending time with Steve. She liked going over to his house and hanging out with him. It was an escape from the life that she had become miserable in. But Steve's roommate's girlfriend apparently wasn't a big fan of Liz coming and hanging around their house. And one day that woman noticed that Liz had two car seats in her car. And one day that woman noticed that Liz had two car seats in her car. Oh.

And that woman assumed, incorrectly as it turned out, but she assumed that Liz was leaving her children unattended somewhere whenever she was coming to hang out with Steve. That's a really ridiculous assumption. It's a very ridiculous assumption. Anytime I see an empty car seat. Right. My car has a car seat in it right now. Yeah, and London is God knows where. Just wandering around in just a diaper, I'm sure. Absolutely not.

You really should find child care for when you're at the podcast. Yeah. I'm going to have to work on that. So this woman called and reported Liz to the Department of Family Services. What? Uh-huh. White woman? I don't know.

I know. That's fine. You don't have to know because I know. I don't know. And so an investigation was opened. The Department of Family Services came out to Liz's house and eventually determined that the children were not and had not ever been at risk. Oh, my God. But they also let Liz know that they were required by law to let the other parent know about the investigation. I mean, sure.

Of course. That sounds like, yeah, you should. Liz was distraught by this. She went to Nathan and asked him what she should do. And, you know, she was like, Matt's going to find out about the affair because he's going to find out about the investigation. And Nathan was like, you don't really have a choice. Like, you just got to come clean.

Like, you're done anyway. So just do it. And so in September of 2014, Liz did come clean. She told Matt that she'd been having an affair. She told him about the investigation that had happened as a result of it. about the investigation that had happened as a result of it. And for the next month or so, things were really rough at Liz's house. The couple obviously was not getting along.

Liz was still talking to Steve sometimes, it appears. And then one day Matt told Liz that he couldn't keep living like this. Things needed to get better. They needed something had to happen. And so he said that he was going to bring his mom and her partner out, as well as his sister, to come live with them. Well, what about some members of her family? I mean, wouldn't. No, this is what Matt wants.

And that's what we are focused on here. Okay. We need to make things better for Matt. Sorry. Sorry for even suggesting that. Yes. All right. He thought maybe some extra help around the house would fix things. It was super upsetting to Liz.

She again went to her friends and asked what she should do. She said she absolutely could not live with her in-laws. She had never felt accepted by them. She felt that they had never approved of their relationship. Okay. I will say here that Matt is a white man. Okay. And none of the articles specifically say that his family didn't approve because it was an

interracial relationship but I feel like there was like some heavy hinting at that. Yeah she just never felt accepted by them. Never felt that they approved of the relationship. Yeah so great now they're going to come and live in her house. And probably find out

that she cheated on him and so now they have like an actual reason to not like her. Absolutely. Cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So again, Nathan said to Liz,

like, you know what to do here. You know, it's just time. You got to file for divorce. Just, you got to be done. And he like really gave her a pep talk and like she was like, you're right. It's exactly what I got to do. He said she felt empowered by coming to this decision. Finally, like I'm going to do it. She met with a lawyer. She put a retainer down on a credit card and she prepared to tell Matt it was time.

That was October 13th, 2014, which, fun fact, is Steve's birthday. My stepdad, not the guy in this case. Thank you for clarifying. You're welcome. I think we were all just wondering, when is Brandy's stepdad's birthday? I thought so. I was wondering, when is Brandy's stepdad's birthday? I thought so. That evening, she sent several texts to family and friends explaining, like, what was going on, what she'd done that day, and that she and Matt were arguing about it.

Oh, God. And then the messages stopped. Yeah. Because the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship was when you're trying to leave. And calls and texts to Liz's phone went unanswered. And then Liz Sullivan disappeared. Yeah. Oh, gosh.

The following day, October 14th, when Nathan couldn't get a hold of liz she didn't respond to his text messages she didn't answer the phone when he called in fact her phone went straight to voicemail like it was turned off he called the police he called the police and he reported her missing good yeah and so they made an official missing persons report and they reached out to her husband and asked him why he hadn't reported her missing. Yeah. Excellent question. And he said, well, she's not really missing. She left. Oh, I'm sure.

And he said, in fact, I called the police last night and they looked into it. And sure enough, on October 13th, he had made a 911 call. And on that call, he had said that he was concerned that maybe his wife was setting him up, maybe trying to take the kids from him. He said there'd been an argument that she had made a big mess of their bedroom and that she had told him she was going to say that he'd done it and she took pictures of it. And then she'd packed a bag and stormed out of the house. Made a mess of their bedroom. Yeah, like there'd been like a big fight in there. She'd like, you know, thrown stuff around and then

she'd taken pictures of it and said, you know, I'm going to show people what you did. I'm going to tell them what you did. Okay. When really according to him, she had been the one to do it. Gotcha. It was all an elaborate ruse. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then, yeah, she'd left that house.

Uh-huh. And he didn't know where she'd gone. And she turned off her cell phone. And she'd also transferred $1,000, which was like all of the money in their joint account, to her own personal account. Did she spend any of that money? Hmm. Well, there were a couple charges that came through in the next couple days. But once they looked into it, it appeared that those charges had been like pending prior to her disappearance, but they just posted after she disappeared.

Yeah. So she took off. She took some money with her first, but then when she was on the run, she somehow didn't spend any money. No money. Or leave any trace. Didn't have a... And didn't take the kids, I assume. No, no. That's weird. No, she was plotting that.

She was going to get to that. What a weird plot that she leaves with the plan to come back and steal the kids. Yeah. Okay. Mm-hmm. So a big search for Liz starts. Liz's dad flies out from Virginia to help, like, head up a search for her. They put up missing person posters, which included her height and weight.

We love that. It's devastating. I don't know why anybody would. We love that. It's devastating. I don't know why anybody would need to do that. Just a picture is fine. What is the weight? I mean, I can't guess a person's weight anyway. So knowing what the weight on their driver's license says is helpful in no way. Maybe we should just say, like, 5'10", sexy. Yeah. Hmm. Maybe we should just say like five foot ten

sexy. Yeah. Yeah. Five foot ten ass that won't quit. That's all you need to know. That's right. Liz was five foot three

just for the record. Adorable. Yeah. Cool. Anyway. They Well he obviously dumped her in the ocean.

Hmm. Mm-hmm. All right. We'll see. We'll see. We will see. So, went to some fucking Navy pier in his little sailor suit and... Just so he didn't look out of place?

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Interesting theory. Thank you. Uh-huh. Interesting theory. Thank you. You're welcome. So lots of people are searching for Liz and it's really like a couple of people came forward with sightings of her. She was seen in a soccer field near the house like the day after she disappeared. A few days later, she was seen at another location.

But further interviews with the people who had claimed to see her, then they came forward and they weren't sure about the dates that they had seen her and nothing really. You didn't. Yeah, nothing really. Nothing really made sense. The police did make a statement like on the news saying that they wanted to make sure that there wasn't any speculation about the disappearance. They weren't even sure that Liz hadn't left of her own free

will. Lieutenant Mike Holden said, I want to stress that we have no suspects or persons of interest in this case. Right now, we have more questions than answers. And Matt was being super helpful. He was. He cooperated with the investigation. He took a polygraph and passed. He gave them a bunch of diaries and journals of Liz's to look through and turns out that

Liz was a pretty complicated person. She had been under psychiatric care like her whole life. She'd been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder pretty young and was on medication for it. And Matt said she had a tendency to take her meds in the way that she wanted to, maybe rather than the way they were prescribed. And that sometimes that could result in episodes where she was not reliable. She would leave for a couple days at a time and then come back.

Could anyone else verify? Yeah, it seems like that was the case. So Nathan talked about it a little bit and said, you know, she did definitely have these medications prescribed to her, but she also knew how to get what she wanted and she knew how to use them in ways other than they were prescribed and that she would occasionally do that. And she was really open with Nathan about how she did that and why she did it. And, yeah, so that wasn't he wasn't making that up. Yeah. But there was no sign that like that was the case now she'd never left for like more

than a night before yeah and days went by with no sign of her no credit card activity no debit card activity no cell phone activity nothing yeah and then they learned about that tinder profile that that liz had set up where she'd started, you know, meeting guys. And they found one guy that she'd briefly talked to who had a previous arrest for choking a girlfriend. And so they went and tracked him down and turned out to be nothing. Like they'd seen each other like one time. And then they found that Steve guy. I'm suddenly very worried that this man's name

is not Steve. So if it isn't, I've changed it for Stove. It doesn't even have a name. Yeah, so if that's not his name, then I've intentionally changed it to Steve. We'll just go with that.

Yes. And so they learned that she had been seeing this guy and so they tracked him down and he was not cooperative at all. Cooperative.

Was he cooperative? They asked him to take a polygraph and he said, fuck no. I mean, I'd say fuck no. I would say fuck no, exactly. They asked him to come down to the station and be interviewed. He said, no, thank you.

I'll do it if you have a warrant. But there was not probable cause enough for them to secure a warrant. Tell me that it wasn't the husband? I don't know. Am I? Probably not. You're probably

there's it's got to be the husband. So they look into this guy for quite some time. They actually executed a search near some property that he, I think, lived at. There was an area, maybe a wooded area, and they had like 50 people go out and search this area. And they actually uncovered a fresh, shallow grave on this land. It turned out to be an animal's grave.

It was not a human. So, yeah, this guy was cleared, too. Yeah. And so they went back and looked into Matt a little bit more. They questioned him about the state of their marriage, and he admitted that, like, things weren't good. They were living separate lives. They were moving toward divorce for sure.

And he knew that she had been having an affair. And then they got access to Matt's text messages and stuff. And while he made it seem like he wasn't upset about the affair, like he was like, yeah, you know, it sucks or whatever. But we're we were moving to divorce anyway. It wasn't any big deal. My feelings weren't hurt by it. Turns out that that wasn't really the full story. Shocking.

In the month after he found out about the affair before Liz disappeared, there was a series of text messages that Matt had sent to Steve. Oh. Really sweet and lovey? Yeah. And one of them, he was like, hey, just a friendly reminder that I work at a hospital. If you want to come get that STD checked out. Oh. Mm-hmm. And another,

like, there were a couple days that he would send him text messages like, oh, saw you guys got to talk today. Hope you had a good conversation. Hmm. Yeah. So just kind of. Steve was smart to not. Steve was very smart. Get involved in any way in that investigation. Yeah. One thing that Steve had actually told detectives was that about a month after Liz disappeared, he got an email from someone saying they were Liz. Okay. But it was from an email address he was not familiar with. And did the IP address go back to the husband? Well, so no, here's the deal. Okay. So he says

in this, he gets this email, it's claiming to be Liz. It's from an email address he's not familiar with. And so he did like a little bit of like a little game like, oh, okay, if you're really Liz, tell me what you got me for my birthday. And the person correctly said a Gumby keychain. Really? Mm-hmm. Is it possible that, what's the husband's name? Matt. Is it possible that what's the husband's name Matt

is it possible Matt would have known that I think it's very possible and so then so police get this information and they're like okay maybe we can track this back to Matt because this was around the same time that they found out that Matt had been sending these text messages these kind of rude text messages to Steve kind of trolling text messages

I mean trolling for sure and so they're like, okay, great. Do you have the email? And Steve was like, no, I deleted it. What? And in the weird, like, this is the weirdest thing to me on the Dateline episode, and they were like, well, that was it. The email had been deleted.

No, that's not it. Like, that's never it. But in this case, they were like, and that was all she wrote? What? Yes! I and that was all she wrote? What? Yes. I thought that was so weird. In every case, they're like, remember, an email is never actually deleted. And also, why the fuck would you delete that?

Yeah. He determined that he didn't think it was real. And so he was just like, this is somebody fucking with me and deleted it. Mm-hmm. didn't think it was real and so he was just like this is somebody fucking with me and deleted it and so they you know they continue to look into matt and they suspected that matt had to have had something to do with liz's disappearance but they didn't have any evidence that an actual crime had been committed. And so the case went cold. Two years went by. Almost two years.

Like a year and like 51 weeks went by. Wow. Thank you for not jumping the gun. You're welcome. And then on October 6th, 2016, almost two years to the day after Liz Sullivan disappeared, her body was found floating in the San Diego Bay, about a half a mile from her house. What? Mm-hmm. what an autopsy determined that liz had been stabbed to death she'd been stabbed five times with great force force so strong that it had broken her ribs oh and she'd also been beaten her jaw and nose were broken how long had she been in the water?

So that's what's really interesting. The autopsy determined that Liz had been dead for about a month when her body was found. No. What? Yeah. Decomposition rates showed that she'd been dead

for about a month maximum two months holy shit but she'd been missing for two years oh my god so Oh, my God. Mm-hmm. So, the interesting thing about the timing of when Liz's body was found was that on that very same day that Liz was found floating in the bay, half a mile from the house that she shared with Matt. Movers had come to that house today to move Matt cross-country with his new girlfriend and baby. Oh, my God.

And so investigators immediately thought that that is not a coincidence. Well, no. And perhaps there was an explanation for why there was only why it looked like she'd only been dead for about a month. Perhaps locked her up in the house. No, that's not a bad theory, but no. Perhaps her body had been preserved in some way. Perhaps she'd been stored in a freezer for two years. And then when it became time for him to move cross country, he dumped her body in the ocean, just as you had predicted. Oh, my God.

Mm hmm. Just as you had predicted. Oh, my God. Mm-hmm. So they have this theory, but now they need evidence to prove it. So all this time, like the lead investigator in the case had been watching Matt's movements through social media. She watched as he got this new girlfriend. He watched as they had a baby. And she knew once they had a child that they would have to move out of the house that he had once shared with Liz.

And this investigator thought, that's going to be our opportunity. So at this point, Matt had consented to multiple searches of his home, but they had been consented searches, not warranted searches. And so it's under his discretion, basically what he allows them to search. And so these had been just cursory searches of the home. So this investigator is like, okay, once they get out of the house, before it is rented again, we need to go in there and do a full scale search. Yeah. And so they find her body. He moves across the country.

And so they get in that house that they had shared immediately and they do a full search of it. The bathroom in the room where Liz had stayed, she stayed in one bedroom and Matt stayed in another. They go and they spray that bathroom down with luminol. It lights up. See, again, I'm. I know I'm skeptical of the luminol. No, that's not what I'm. Oh, what are you saying?

I'm saying a woman was in an abusive relationship. So I'm saying a woman was in an abusive relationship. You know from her friend that she was in this abusive relationship. You know that she was trying to get out of it. You know it doesn't look like she really just disappeared. That should be enough to do an actual thorough search. Do the goddamn paperwork, get in there. Yep.

You know what's even more maddening than that? What? There was a phone call that they knew of from the very beginning of this investigation. Liz called her best friend back in Virginia the night of October 13th, said they were having, she and Matt were having this horrible fight. She didn't know what to do. And her friend was like, lock yourself in your bedroom. Just have to make it till morning.

You're going to be fine. And the friend had been like half asleep when this call had taken place because there's a big time difference from coast to coast. And so she had said, you know, just lock yourself in your bedroom. Just make it through the night. Once it's morning, get out of the house. And so she'd had this phone call with Liz and Liz had said, hold on, I think he's coming. And she'd ended the call.

And the friend never heard from Liz again. So when Liz went missing, she told the missing persons department who was looking into her case, hey, I had this phone call with Liz. And she's like, I am sure that it happened the night, like it happened October 13th. It had to have happened October 13th. And so they went and checked Liz's phone records. And there was no record of the phone call. And so they're like, she must have gotten her dates mixed up. Like, you know, this doesn't mean anything.

What they later determined when they looked back into this is that Liz had called her through WhatsApp. And so it hadn't registered as an actual phone call on Liz's phone. It had on the friend's phone records the evidence of the call was there the whole time. Yeah. Honestly, though, even without that call. Yeah. He is still your prime suspect.

Absolutely. Yeah. He is still your prime suspect. Absolutely. Yeah. And so why not do a thorough search? Yeah. So, okay, they're in the house now that Matt and his family have moved out. They search the bathroom. They do the luminal testing in the bathroom. Shows up positive for blood all over the bathroom and a. They search the bathroom. They do the luminol testing in the bathroom. Shows up positive for blood all over the bathroom and a trail out of the bathroom.

And so they pull up the carpet right outside the bathroom. And on the underside of the carpet is a big blood stain. On the padding is a blood stain. On the subfloor beneath the padding, the wooden subfloor, is a blood stain the size of two watermelons. A lot of blood was spilled on that floor to soak all the way through to the subfloor. And what they knew at this point through their investigation is that a day or two after Liz was reported missing

that Matt had gone to an Ace Hardware and bought carpet cleaner. How long had they known that? They had known that from very early on in the investigation but he had an explanation for it. He said his mom was getting ready to move in and he wanted the house to be perfect for her. And so he cleaned the carpets.

A month after that, he'd gone to another hardware store and bought more carpet cleaner and like an industrial roll of plastic wrap. Yeah. But he'd had an explanation for that, too. The plastic wrap he needed because his mom brought a bunch of stuff when she moved in with him and they were going to wrap it all up and put it into storage. in with them and they were going to wrap it all up and put it into storage. So the theory is, is that Matt killed Liz on October 13th that night in the bedroom. He then stowed her body somewhere for some amount of time, a month approximately. Yeah.

Because that's how much decomposition had taken place on her body. And then he had wrapped her in that plastic wrap and stored her in a deep freeze in the garage for the next two years. Oh. Until he had to move across country and had to dispose of the body. And he had thought that she would sink when he dumped her into the bay and that that would give him time to be moved and settled and no one would think anything of it by the time her body was discovered. But she had surfaced the same day. Yeah. but she had surfaced the same day. Yeah.

This is horrible. Yeah. So they take all of this to the DA. They do DNA testing on that blood that was found in the carpet in the subfloor. It's positive for it's Liz's blood. Yeah. They take all of this to the DA, and the DA is like, it's not enough. How is it not enough?

You don't know how he did it. You don't have a murder weapon. You can't link Matt directly to the crime. And so the investigators from San Diego fly out to Delaware, Wyoming, Delaware. I'm sorry. The way you said Delaware was like Delaware. I couldn't fucking remember where he moved to. Of all places.

Of all places. Fucking Delaware. No, so that's. Who the fuck flies to Delaware? So that's where Matt had moved to. So they fly out to Wyoming, Delaware. Is Delaware fit for human habitation? Yes, it is. It's a lovely place, I'm told. I don to Wyoming, Delaware. Is Delaware fit for human habitation? Yes, it is.

It's a lovely place. I don't know. Delaware. So they hope that they can present this evidence to him, show him what they've got, and that they'll get a confession out of him. They won't. No, it didn't do shit. No. Another year goes by.

Yeah, he's confident as fuck fuck and why wouldn't he be yeah he paraded the police through his own crime scene with her body right there yeah they didn't catch on to it no a full year goes by this case sits goes nowhere. And so the investigators decide we're going to go search the house again. There's got to be something else in that house. They noticed when they were in the house that stuff in the attic there were some planks and stuff in the attic. They looked like they'd been moved

around. So that's where they came up with a theory that that's where her body had been stowed for some amount of time. And so they're like, maybe there's some evidence in that attic that we can find that'll really like. Are you telling me they didn't search that attic thoroughly? No. The first time? So they go back a year later, search it again.

They find a fucking knife stowed in the attic, a military issued folding knife that when they tested it had Liz's blood on the blade and a mixture of Liz and Matt's DNA on the handle. This is a travesty. This is not a victory. So then, now that they've got this knife... Let me ask, this show presents it as like, oh, they kind of...

No, I don't think they's the vibe I got anyway. Because like this is awful. Yes, it is. And so now they thought that her body was in the attic and they just kind of looked. Oh, looks like maybe. Well, I don't want to climb up there. It's dark and spooky. So we'll just stay on here.

I already got my steps in for the day. Yeah. The knife was hidden in the attic, but... Well, yeah, it should be. It's a murder weapon. Yeah, you're not going to find it right out there in the open. Yeah. Yeah, the only way they would have caught this, potentially, like the bloodstain had been really obvious, if her body had been out in the open.

But who's going to do that? Yeah. So when the DNA tests come back and it shows that, yes, this is Liz's blood on the blade and Matt's DNA is on the handle finally the DA is like okay this is enough go get him and so they go back out to fucking Delaware this again and they are arrested they arrested Matthew Sullivan which is how you say it in Delaware. Delaware. That's just how they speak in Delaware, I'm told. It's a strange place.

It is. I'm not even sure it's real. That's kind of the way you say it. And so Matthew Sullivan was extradited to San Diego and he was charged with the first degree murder of Elizabeth Sullivan. In his official arraignment, the felony complaint said that Matthew had killed Liz on or about and between October 13th, 2014 and October 14th, 2014. Yeah. On or about and between. Yeah.

All up in there. Okay, okay, we get it. Matthew pled not guilty. Yeah. Mm-hmm. I don't blame him. Well, I mean, he's got to be confident as shit at this point. Well, yeah, and he's probably just like, man, if the jury is half as stupid as the police were, I'm going to be fine. Right. Matthew's trial began

on February 21st, 2020. The prosecution said that Matt murdered Liz because he found out that she was having an affair and was going to leave him. They said that that night, October 13th, he discovered that Liz had transferred the money out of their joint account to her own account and that she was going to take the children and file for divorce. The prosecution told the jury that like this was not a coincidence that Liz's body was found in the bay the same day that Matt moved cross country. Yeah, of course it's not. A coincidence that big does not exist.

Right. There was a lot of talk about the physical evidence to Liz's body. Like I said, she had five stab wounds, a couple that hit her ribs so hard that they broke her ribs, and that she had a broken jaw and broken nose. This was a violent death. Yeah. A very violent death. And that it had to have happened

while their children were in the next room. Yeah. And then the prosecution told the jury that they believed that Matt had hid her body for two years. When investigators got into the house for the first

time after Matt had moved out of it, they specifically noted that there was an odor in the garage, one that they believed was consistent with decomposition. One article said- Wait, what? The first time they went in there, they- No, after he had vacated the house. Oh, okay. So once they get in there to do the full thorough search. Right. Okay.

So at this point, they believe that she's been in that freezer for two years. Yeah. So they said that they picked up the smell of decomposition in that garage that day. One article said they actually brought a cadaver dog in and that the cadaver dog alerted in the garage. But I wasn't able to find any other article that supported that. And it wasn't mentioned on the Dateline episode anywhere. Okay.

And the prosecution told the jury all about the murder weapon. The murder weapon had been found in the attic, which was above the room that Matt slept in in the home that he and Liz shared and that it had Liz's blood on the blade and both Matthew and Liz's DNA on the handle. This was a circumstantial case, but it's pretty strong. Yeah. And they talked about that blood staining on the carpet, how it had been enough blood to soak through the pad into the subfloor and enough blood had soaked through to the subfloor to leave two watermelon sized stains. Yeah. And then there was the evidence about him buying the carpet cleaning supplies in the

first time was immediately after her disappearance. And then more a month later. Like this carpet had been thoroughly clean because there was no staining to the surface of it. But it was right there below the surface. Yeah. The prosecution told the jury that Matthew had a lot of motives. He had the means and he had the opportunity. They said the crime scene was in her bedroom and the murder weapon was in the attic above his. Yeah.

They talked a lot about the history that I've already told you about how they'd been a whirlwind romance and then the relationship had turned sour quickly after and had become violent that there were they talked about the 911 call that Liz had placed what five months before she disappeared five or six months before she disappeared saying she feared that the argument they were having was going to escalate and turn physical and the prosecution told the jury about how Matt wasn't even the one to report Liz missing. Yeah. That her friend had done it. But that Matt had called the police the day Liz went missing and said he thought he was being set up.

Yeah. And in that call, something was really interesting. So they had asked him, you know, what's she wearing? Because he said she'd left and he didn't know where she went. And they said, what was she wearing? And he said, I don't know. She left. She left so quickly as she just grabbed a bag and left. I know she had jeans on and brown boots. And when her body was found in the bay two years later, she was wearing jeans and brown boots. Yeah. Nathan character testified for the prosecution about how Liz had confided in him that she had married for the wrong reasons and that she was in a loveless marriage, that she was ready to leave it and that she'd been in that extramarital affair and that Matthew had found out about it and that she had finally, you know, made the appointment with the lawyer and she was ready to file for divorce. And before she could ever officially file, she had disappeared.

And then it was the defense's turn. The defense said that this was all circumstantial. None of it really meant anything. The relationship had been deteriorating since 2012. You know, Matt was, he was kind of a victim here as well. He was trying to hold on to a wife who had been pulling away from him for years. And she was on a path of a self-destructive lifestyle. She was misusing her prescribed medications. She was on a downward spiral. You know, sometimes she wouldn't come home at night.

Sometimes you wouldn't know where she was. One time she just, like, slept out in a field. Really? Yeah, I don't know if that's actually true, but it was mentioned at trial. Well, sometimes you got to get away from your abusive husband, you know? Yeah. She was drinking wine. Oh, my God.

Using marijuana. Well, that changes things. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was pretty bad. It was pretty bad. But you know what? There was an explanation for those things that looked pretty bad for Matt. That blood that was found in the bedroom. Yeah. That was not a result of her death. She hadn't died. She hadn't been murdered in that bedroom. See, Liz, according to the defense,

was a cutter. An emotional cutter. No, she didn't. There's no way that she got that amount of... Yeah, because here's the thing. Who's even to say how much actual blood it was?

Well, it had to have been a lot if it soaked through the carpet pad and stained the subfloor. You know what happens when you get a stain wet? It spreads and goes deeper. So really, just a small amount of blood could have been the beginning of that. And then each time they tried to clean it up, it just seeped in more and then got a little bigger. No. Yeah. Why not?

Yeah. That's not. No. It's a ridiculous explanation. Yeah. No, it's a ridiculous explanation. Yeah. And I hate this tactic of like, let's make her look like an unstable woman who. Well, here's the thing.

Okay, go ahead and be unstable. Yeah. All right. So you're unstable. Yeah. But he killed her. He killed her. He obviously killed her.

Yeah. She doesn't have to be the perfect victim. That knife, not even a murder weapon. It's the knife she used to cut herself. Oh, my God. That's why her blood was on it, obviously. And that whole thing about her body being kept in a freezer, there's no proof of that. It's just a theory.

Listen, what we have here is a woman who disappeared in October of 2014. And the prosecution is alleging that she was murdered in October of 2014. But the forensic pathologist who did her autopsy says she died in 2016. So he can't even be guilty of this. Did they really say so they really said that she had the amount of decomposition consistent with one month yes but then they later came back and said that could be affected if the body

was preserved in some way yes yeah so I mean this is just the whole thing's just ridiculous according to the defense. Oh, it's ridiculous. Also, we would like you to remember, members of the jury, that Matthew has no previous criminal record. And he was in the Navy for eight years, served his country,

and he was a Boy Scout when he was a kid. Wow. So there. Isn't the only reason he doesn't have a record? Because, like, the police didn't do anything when she called them? When she called them and said, yeah, uh-huh, there's a history of domestic violence here, and I'm scared of my husband.

Yeah. Cool. Mm-huh. There's a history of domestic violence here, and I'm scared of my husband. Yeah. Cool. Mm-hmm. The jury deliberated for about a day and a half, and they found Matthew Sullivan guilty of second-degree murder. I'm really surprised they deliberated for that long. Yeah, so am I. So he was found guilty in March of 2020. Okay.

Oh, wow. Mm-hmm. So March of 2020, he's found guilty. Yeah, Rona. And then the Rona happened. So a year went by before he was sentenced. For real?

For real. Like, all the courts were shut down. Everything got delayed. And so a whole year went by before his sentencing was he just chilling i mean yeah in custody okay he wasn't just out living it up all right no he was in custody so finally in march of 2021 he was back in court for his sentencing hearing and uh he made a statement oh oh I can't wait for this. He said, the only issue I had at trial was I believe I

was not allowed to call in relevant witnesses to my defense. I thoroughly believe their testimony would have thoroughly changed the verdict in this trial. Whose? I have no idea. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

The prosecution asked the judge to sentence Matthew to life in prison. Yeah. They said, there is clearly no remorse from the defendant. He thinks he could have gotten a different verdict, apparently. He doesn't feel one iota of sorrow for what he did. And the judge agreed. The judge said, the jury verdict and the evidence at trial makes clear that Matthew Sullivan brutally murdered his wife, methodically cleaned up the messy murder site, and then hid the body for years. Yeah. He almost got away with it, but his final attempt to hide the body at the bottom of the bay failed.

The judge then sentenced Matthew to 16 years to life in prison. 16? I know. I believe that's what second-degree murder carries. And that's the story of a disappearance. That's awful. Yeah. Okay, look up Liz Sullivan.

You got to look up. I mean, her. Look at her fucking eyebrows. May I look at the rest of her face? It sounds like I'm mad, but I'm not mad. She's just beautiful. Okay. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. You're right. She does have a beautiful smile. Yes! Look at her teeth! Calm down! Yeah, she's really beautiful.

Mm-hmm. Gosh. Her poor kids. Yeah. Oh, God. He looks like a blech. Yeah. So he had the new girlfriend? Mm-hmm.

What's the deal there? I don't know. They had a baby together. I don't— Oh, that sucks. I forgot about the baby. Yeah. Well, she got very lucky yeah I

couldn't find who had who has care of the two children that Liz and yeah Liz and Matt had together hopefully her family I hope so as well yeah she's like mesmerizingly pretty I know and she's totally

the type of pretty that like even when she'd be like, oh my gosh, I'm such a mess. Like, because it's all in like her actual bone structure

and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Rude. He, in every, every picture of him, he looks like he

has not showered. Yes. Recently. Yes picture of him, he looks like he has not showered recently. Yes. I always think he looks different in every picture of him. He does. Yes. He's like a little chameleon. Mm-hmm. Don't trust him.

I mean, obviously. He maintains his innocence, by the way. Of course he does. He says he's wrongfully convicted. Well, you know, if they'd gotten those mystery people to come testify, then this would have gone a totally different way. Yeah. Too bad the mystery people weren't able to show up. Yeah.

God love them. Mm-hmm. Okay. There's not much time before we do our Zoom call with our patrons. Oh, what's that? You're upset you missed it? Just join and you'll be included next time. That's right.

I mean, you can't go back in time and hit it now, but. Buckaroo. Well, that's the way time works. Sorry. But for now, we will get on our Discord. I feel like I'm talking in a really weird way because I'm kind of excited. We will take some questions from our Discord. To get in our Discord, all you have to do is join our Patreon at the $5 level or higher.

Ooh, TwoTimeJuryAlternate wants to know, Brandy, are you saying all your farts go in the toilet? Like, even when you're home alone, you'll go to the bathroom to fart? That's madness. Answer the question, Brand even when you're home alone, you'll go to the bathroom to fart. That's madness. Answer the question, Brandy. Yeah. No. I don't.

I don't fart. Brandy. Very, very often to begin with. You're telling me you're home alone. Very occasionally. You're comfy on the couch. You're maybe having a snack. You're watching some Bob Vila's Home Improvement.

Those are mashed up two shows. Well, that's what you're watching. Okay. I believe Bob Vila guest starred on an episode of Home Improvement, so I'm going to assume that's the one I'm watching. Don't be a smartass. You're watching Home Improvement on your phone. You've got Bob Vila pulled up on the TV. Okay.

You've got a thing of popcorn. You're very comfy. Yeah. You're telling me you feel a fart and you get up? No, I probably wouldn't. But you're telling me that that's what you do occasionally when you're alone. You go into the bathroom and sit on a toilet. No, I would say occasionally when I'm alone, I would just let one slip.

Let one just blow on through. But you're saying that sometimes when you are alone, you go to the bathroom specifically to fart into the toilet. to the bathroom specifically to fart into the toilet. Everyone, she's sweating because this is ridiculous and she knows it. No, no, no. It's because, well, if you have to fart, does that mean you probably got like a poo behind there? So that's why I just go to the bathroom. I mean, it could mean that the poo's coming to the station soon.

All right. I'm just not that gassy. Everyone, I've got my skeptical face on. Let's see. This person also had a question for me, also fart related. Yeah, what do you got? Well, I mean, this will be weird because it's like, you know, you're lying and I'm going to be honest. So, you know, who knows?

Kristen, do you not normally fart in front of Norm? I've been married for 20 years and I only leave the room if I think it's a stinker. Oh, my gosh. I never fart in front of Norm. You fart in front of Norm all the time. You fart in front of me. No. My farts, first of all, they never come out.

But when they do, they smell like lilacs, you know? So, yeah. I really do almost always fart in the bathroom. Yeah, me too. Everyone, I wish you could see her face. It's the face of a killer who's been caught. It's what we're experiencing. No, I'm thinking of like the one exception.

What do you mean the one exception? The exception when I knowingly fart. Not in the bathroom. What? When? So in the morning. Do you have a morning fart? Yeah, but only after David gets up and goes to the bathroom.

So he's in the bathroom. I can't go fart in the bathroom. But then I'm awake and in bed still. So I might i might you know love fart go right there in the in the covers wow and he knows and he's disgusted no he doesn't know because he's in the bathroom i mean knows now because i just said it on this podcast he hears you every time and he's like that's so cute. I don't think he can hear me. He only smells. Stop it. Ooh, okay. PTSD out the wing-wing says

my question is for Brandy. Have you ever secretly enjoyed something you know Kristen judges so you avoided telling her about it? Like Disney, kinky things, older men, etc. No, I mean you know that I like Disney to some degree. I'm not a full Disney adult, but I like Disney movies and you tease me mercilessly about it.

I'm not into older dudes and not particularly kinky stuff, but I wouldn't be afraid to tell you about it. It's funny when people think that like, you know what I mean? Yeah. Sorry, I should probably finish my sentence on a podcast. But I feel like, oh. You say it. What are you trying to say? Okay, yeah, we might have to.

I feel like I'm pretty sexually open. Yeah. I judge, but I'm not like some little period. You're not a little prude. Yeah, I don't know. But that's sort of common feedback we get from people. It's like, oh, Kristen can't handle. Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm Kristen can't handle. Yeah.

Meanwhile, I'm just juggling nuts over here. Also, we are best friends and we know, like, everything about each other. So, like, there's no dark secrets I'm keeping from Kristen. Yeah, I mean. Out of a fear that she's going to judge me. And also, like, I feel like there are things I don't like. There's things you know you don't like. Yeah, absolutely. But it's like, who feel like there are things, I don't like, there's things you don't like. Yeah, absolutely.

But it's like, who cares? Yes, exactly. What Kristen was trying to say eloquently is that she's a big old horn dog. Yeah. Well, okay. Am I weird for being, like, surprised every time someone has that reaction to us? Yes. No, you're not weird.

But I think it is funny that people have some perception of you. Yeah. Like, you're the one who tried on lingerie over your eye clothes. Ooh. Sharna asks, Brandy, do you still have your white bedding that you were talking about? And how do you keep it clean? I just got a Helix and picked out a white comforter set. What's a Helix?

I don't know what that is. And then remember, I have two long-haired cats. Yes, I have all white bedding. And I wash it with OxyClean. And it stays very white. I mean, throughout, like, you know, my makeup gets on my pillowcase, obviously. One of thosearts stain things every morning. Stop it!

I'm not sharting in my bed, Kristen! That's why Brandy is so religious about going to the toilet for the farts. They're almost 90% of the time a shart. 90% of my farts are sharts! You would fart to the toilet, too.

And that's why she doesn't sleep naked is because she's got those white sheets. That's right. It's all coming together. Two whole new podcasts wants to know any good or bad takes from Election Day. In Kentucky, we suck at electing senators but narrowly voted against an anti-abortion amendment I'm stunned and so glad yeah so um well Norman and I had a kind of fun moment um we tried to vote early which was a whole dramatic deal we ended up having to vote on the actual day in question yes because I insisted on going at 4 p.m.

It's fine. Norm's not mad. Anyway, it was fun because we were in this long line to vote. And, you know, we're in Kansas City, Missouri. Yeah. All right? Yeah. So this lady comes out after she's voted and she was like, excuse me, everyone.

I have the sheet for the Republican Party with all the recommendations on how to vote. Does anybody want it? No, ma'am. No one said a word. So she thought no one had heard her. Oh, no. So she repeated herself louder. And you should have seen how pissed she was.

Oh, no. So she repeated herself louder, and you should have seen how pissed she was. Missouri voted to legalize marijuana. Yeah, it's wild times. Recreational marijuana. Exciting times in Missouri. You'll die if you have a bad pregnancy, but, you know, you can have an edible. Kansas shockingly kept their Democratic governor. I got to say, I'm pleasantly surprised by how things went overall.

Yeah, same. I mean, it's all a hell pit. Yes, exactly. The Ginger Snap wants to know, did the two of you ever work on grade school projects together? I don't feel like we did. No, I don't think our teachers would ever put us in a group together. No. Yeah.

Now, in fifth grade, Mrs. Francis would put us together on field trips. Yes. Because we had such a good time together. That's right. I mean, well, it's funny because, you know, this podcast is kind of a group project. It is. And we do great at it. We do wonderful at it.

But weirdly, in the sixth grade, we were not put together for anything. Shocking. Who were you paired up with for, like, science fair stuff? Nobody I wanted to be paired up with no me neither and i always ended up doing way more than my share of the work because i was a good student who couldn't handle not having things done and maybe disappointing myself or others who were you paired up with and we'll bleep them i I can't remember. All right. Well, that was a lame conversation.

Much like your science fair project, I'm sure. Oh, my God. Clark Adventures 94 has asked a very important question. First time homeowner here and my yard is covered in leaves. What do I do with them? If I mow them, then what? I just have tiny leaves everywhere. I could take and bag them, but there has to be an easier way, right? Question mark. Question mark. You've been waiting for this moment for all your life. Oh, my Lord. Okay. Well,

I guess I'll answer this question. All right. Here's the deal. For my birthday this year, I don't mean to brag to you people. I don't mean to make people really jealous. But I asked Norm to get me a leaf vacuum. And he was a little afraid to do it because he was afraid that it would seem like a weird gift or like maybe a lame gift. I think that was his fear. On the contrary. You love it. You fucking love it. It's okay.

My yard is covered in leaves. Yeah. And like it takes forever to rake and bag, which is what I was doing like a chump. Yeah. Now, you know, get yourself a little broom pan to help scoop the leaves into the bag. I mean, there's tips, but it takes forever. But that leaf vacuum, you boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, break them into little piles. Big piles, actually.

Does it mulch them as it goes? It sure does, baby. That's nice. And you know what? That is nice. I was filling up thousands of bags before. Now, dozens. I'm very excited for you and your lawn vacuum.

I'm excited, too. I love that thing. I feel like a fucking Ghostbuster when I use it. You feel like it? Does it go on your back? No, but it's got a vibe to it, you know? Oh, okay. And also, I'm like, da-na-na-na-na-na.

Yeah, that's a big part of that. Mmm. Mmm. So Shut Up About It asks, My husband and I recently visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. He loved it, and I was there. Oh. So, Brandy, would you go to the museum if I told you it had a great gift shop? Of course I would.

I would be there for the gift shop. First of all, how fucking dare you? It's a great museum. And they keep the spots where the paintings were stolen. Like, you go and you look and there's just a blank spot on the wall. Cool. It is cool. Asshole.

You know what? We should move on to Supreme Court We gotta move on to Supreme Court Inductions. We have a Zoom call to get on.

There's no time. No time to be talking about boring Arnold Fallen's No, it's not boring. You uncultured

swine. All right, to get inducted on this podcast, all you have to do is join our Patreon at the $7 level or higher. And we are reading your names and your first celebrity crushes.

Catherine Seegers. Jonathan Taylor Thomas. So many JTTs. Well, he was... Was he your first celebrity crush? Who was my first... Oh, no. Mine had to have been Mario Lopez.

Duh. Yeah, mine was Zack Morris. Mm-hmm. Mark Paul Gosselaar. Yeah. Anyway, on with the chlorophyll. Sarah Duggan Dug. I think...

Sorry. Doug. I think. Sure as hell her name's just Sarah Duggan. The second Duggan wants to try to help you know how to pronounce it. The second Doug is silent. Sarah, Sarah, Duggan, Duggan. The Fox off of Disney's Robin Hood Oh shit

That was a hot fox That was a hot fox I remember having some feelings And it's conflicted feelings Because it's like Why did they make this fox so sexy So hot yeah Lauren Perry

Nick Carter You forgot the second Perry. Natalie C. John Stamos as Uncle Jesse. Oh, yeah. Gerilyn D. Christian Bale in Newsies. Alyssa Maynard.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Amber Cashwell. Johnny Depp. Kayla Fridley. Jesse Bradford, but really just his role as Missy's brother in Bring It On. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mallory

Bertelsen. Mark Paul Gossela, la, la, la, with Britney Spears as a close second. Taylor Costello. Nick Carter. Laura. Jerry Garcia. She says, I'm old, LOL. Jill Farfari.

Jared Leto in My So-Called Life. Oh, yeah. Anna Hernandez. Sylvester Stallone. Rose. Jeffrey Donovan. Who's Jeffrey Donovan? Who's Jeffrey Donovan?

Some random dude? No, let's get to the bottom of this. Jeffrey Donovan. Oh, yeah, I've seen this person before. Boy, I'm glad we paused for this.

He looks like this. Okay, yeah, I mean, I have the same reaction. Alright, Rose. Haley. Erin Carter. Kathleen. Will Wheaton in Stand By Me. Excellent.

Lindsay Lee. A tie between Mike Hunt and Megan Fox. Is that a real person? I can't tell if she just made me say Mike Hunt. Hold on, now I'm looking up Mike Hunt Yeah, yeah, you keep googling that, Kristen Well, there is a football player I feel like I was just lured into this Mike Hunt Hunt.

Welcome to the Supreme Court. Thank you, everyone, for all of your support. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Patreon. Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen, and then head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review. And then while you're at it, why don't you head on over to YouTube and subscribe to The Gaming Historian. Yeah, why don't you? Why don't you?

Brandi's going to be in an upcoming episode. Somebody may have recorded a little quote-unquote for the video today. All right, let's move along. for the video today. All right, let's move along. And then after you've done all of that, please be sure to join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned.

And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. I got my info from two episodes of Vindicated. Also, the Texas Tribune, NBC News, Everything Lubbock, Texas Monthly,

the Star-Telegram, the Fort Worth Star-Te Telegram, and the Texas Observer. Oh, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I didn't write it all out. And the Texas Innocence Project. Are you done now? I'm done. And I got my info from an episode of Dateline, ChillingCrimes.com, San Diego 7 News, People.com, and the San Diego Tribune.

Wow, you kind of blew through that all willy-nilly. For a full list of our sources, visit LGTCpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.